


Wish I Were Here

by ggrantaire



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam plays piano, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Siblings, F/F, Gen, Gratuitous prom scene, M/M, Noah is alive, but it's also about Gansey a lot, this is a pynch fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-06 14:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6757948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggrantaire/pseuds/ggrantaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day the youngest Gansey was stung to death by hornets drives Adam to the edge.<br/>Whether it's mere coping with his brother's death or something more sinister—his family doesn't know.</p>
<p>— An AU based off Next to Normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _" 'Cause if you won't grieve me, you won't leave me behind. "_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU is based off the plot of Next to Normal. You don't need to have seen or heard the musical to read this (though of course it's amazing, and I recommend).
> 
> Content warnings include things from the musical: Attempted suicide, general depression, hallucinations, slight ableist language. No descriptions thereof are graphic or explicit. The major character death is the one you read in the summary. If you need more information, [Ask It](https://helengansey.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Title from a song in the musical [of the same name](https://play.spotify.com/track/2vMe4tEwZ5gDLGk6l6NyeW).

 

> i.

It was hours before their harmless game of hide-and-seek shifted into something much more panicked on that sticky spring day. _We were playing hide-and-seek,_ Adam had said to anyone who would listen. _We were just playing hide-and-seek_. His younger brother was smaller than he was, more adventurous, more nimble than he was, and he’d probably just gotten himself stuck up a tree or in an attic crawlspace. But the disquiet of many was bigger than the faith of one older brother; Adam heard his mother ask, _Should we check the woods_? as he dashed back inside the house.

The air-conditioning bit his skin, damp with perspiration. He’d wrestled the long sleeves of his dress-shirt up ages ago, at the beginning of the game, but they kept sliding back over his wrists, unwilling to stay rolled up. Now they lay wrinkled against his skin, and he couldn’t help but to think it was a bad sign that no one thought to admonish him. He caught sight of Helen across the room, chewing at her thumbnail. She didn’t meet his eyes.

Adam took the stairs.

He called his brother’s name down the hallway, though the only response he received was his own voice ricocheting back off the empty walls. “Hey, we aren’t playing anymore, I promise. Everyone’s really worried. _Please_ come out.” Adam’s footsteps were too loud up here, heavy echoes against the ancient wood floors. He dragged his wrist across his forehead. “We aren’t playing.”

He searched every room upstairs, even though they’d already looked there, even though the second floor was technically off-limits. It was so still. With a spark of anger, he wondered why no one else was helping him search up here. Did they think his brother that much an observer of the rules? They didn’t know him, Adam thought sickly.

At the end of the hallway, he poked his head into a spare bedroom. Thinly furnished and dusty, it wasn't much of a room, but a wardrobe nestled in the corner drew his attention. He’d checked it earlier but had been unable to open it. Now he approached it again and gave the metal knob a fierce yank. This time it fell open, and something about the force it required swelled hope—surely, this was it, this was his brother’s hiding spot, he must have been holding the door shut from the inside, but now he’d given up, now he was going to step out and gripe about having been found.

But no—Adam blinked into the darkness. Coats. Coats, coats, coats, and no brother.

 _This can’t be happening_ , he remembered thinking. The thought had felt out of place; _what_ couldn’t be happening? But somehow he knew, and he knew it wasn’t good. _This can’t be happening_.

He sank to the floor, body suddenly too heavy for the weight of the empty wardrobe, the empty house. The Gansey children had seen enough episodes of _48 Hours_ on dark nights curled in the television room, seen enough of the evening news over their father’s shoulder to scare themselves sick. Kidnappings, murders, torture—

(Though in the end, it was just an accident.)

Adam dropped his face to his hands. “We’re not playing anymore,” he called, voice breaking.

“Adam.”

With a shock, his eyes flew open, and he smiled, almost laughing with relief. “Where have you _been_?”

Because there he stood, leaned with one arm against the doorframe. His brown hair was mussed, his skin too pale, but other than that he looked fine, fine, fine. Nothing their mother couldn’t fix by fussing over him in the bathroom for a few minutes. But he didn’t smile back at Adam. He dropped his face, shoulders sagging. Adam faltered.

“Hey, we’re not mad, we were just worried. You’re too good at the game.” He pushed himself to his feet, though when he took a step closer to his brother, he raised his hand in a minimal _Stop_ motion. Adam stopped. “What is it?”

He glanced over his shoulder, towards a curtain-clad window in the hallway. As though it were difficult for him, he took a step backwards and raised the fingers of his other hand to point in the direction of the lawn below. Adam shuffled forward, offering him only a short glance before pulling back the curtains and peering through the glass.

The adults were still crowded in the yard, as he’d left them, but now they were crowded around a scene.

“Di—” but when Adam turned around his brother was gone.

He felt his stomach plummet.

The only part of that day Adam could remember past that was the way the backdoor had slammed when he’d burst through it, the sting of Helen’s nails digging into his arm as she’d tried to hold him back. The feeling of his brother’s name in his throat, tearing his vocal chords raw. Helen had been crying. He remembered the way his mother had hid her face, the way his father was bent over something Adam couldn’t see, something they wouldn’t let him see.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

When he tore himself away from his sister at last, he didn’t rush forward; he sank back inside.

There his brother was, shirt untucked, hazel eyes too dark, right in the middle of the abandoned party. He was standing there, just standing.

And then a moment later, he was not.

 

 

> ii.

It’s always the most banal of times that Adam notices his brother—in the middle of doing his homework, Adam will look up and see him flipping through a book just across the room. In the morning before school, while pouring himself some cereal, he’ll happen to glance over and see him sitting at the kitchen table, chin in his hands as though that’s right where he belongs. He pokes through Adam’s things, leaves interesting newspaper articles on his desk, watches him as he practices piano. Sometimes, more rarely, Adam’s eyes fly open in the middle of the night to the sound of footsteps padding about his room. He always whispers, _Sorry, Adam_ and then drifts back into silence.

Helen says he isn’t real. Helen says he is a figment of Adam’s imagination. Helen is the one who tells their parents. A traitor, he’d called her. Depressed, she’d called him. Sick. Hurting. Hallucinating.

Adam didn’t think he was any of those things.

However, four years had done nothing in the way of diminishing the residual presence of his brother. Their brother. His. Adam doesn’t know if this form of him belongs to anyone except Adam himself.

 _His_ brother. His brother, who is now perched on the edge of the white grand piano, which, for all its prominence in the Ganseys’ living room, only Adam could play. This is accepted, though, because he’s good enough for the four of them. Five of them. Four.

 “Helen will be down soon to get you.”

Adam sighs lightly in response, not breaking from the sonata at his fingertips.

“She’ll be upset if you make her wait.”

“I know.” Adam does this every week: Helen comes back from college for the weekends, claiming it’s just because she can’t stand to leave her family for too long, and _oh_ , how convenient, she’s able to drive Adam to his therapist as well. Adam, the little brother who can’t get over the loss of the littler brother; Adam, fourteen-year-old boy on more anti-depressants than everyone else at his school combined; Adam, quiet son who will only talk to his sister about the visions he can’t shake.

He hears Helen’s shoes before he hears her voice. “Adam, let’s go.” The jangle of keys just barely drifts over the notes of the piano. Resignedly Adam’s fingers come to a halt, and the following screech of the piano bench sliding backwards over the hardwood is enough to make even his brother grimace.

Every Saturday goes like this: Adam wakes up at ten. _He_ appears just after Adam’s brushed his teeth, just after Adam’s swallowed his pills for the next eight hours, just as Adam is shuffling down the stairs to the main floor. He watches while Adam scavenges for some semblance of breakfast, asks Adam how he slept. Sometimes he answers, and sometimes he does not. While he eats, his brother sometimes says nice things ( _What a beautiful day it is today. You should see the rose that’s blooming out back_.); sometimes he says awful things ( _A man who lived four blocks over hanged himself from his ceiling fan last night._ ); sometimes he says things that go unfinished ( _Wouldn’t it be easier if you just—?_ ). Some days Adam allows himself to fill in the ends of these broken sentences. Some days he’s stronger than that. Then, Adam will put his dishes into the dishwasher, wash his hands, and head for the living room. His brother will follow; he always follows. For the next hour and a half he plays the piano, practicing whichever song his brother has flipped the sheet music to. He will say thank you to him before he begins playing, and his brother will return a simple, _You’re welcome_. And then, sometime shortly before twelve, Helen will appear, ending his practice, and then they’ll get into her car and drive into town, where a woman in a neatly ironed blouse will listen to all of Adam’s woes for an hour and then send him back on his way. To and from the session, Helen will pry into Adam’s head with none of the professional distance or resignation of his shrink. This is the real reason she comes home every weekend, the real reason their parents are never the ones to take Adam to that awful taupe building.

“Was he here again this morning?” she asks the moment the car is in gear, before they’re even out of the driveway.

Adam fights the urge to drop his head to the glass of the window, just like he does every Saturday afternoon. “He’s here every morning, Helen. He lives with us.”

“He doesn’t live with _me_ ,” she retorts.

“Well, he _does_.”

A moment passes, just long enough to wordlessly and fractionally change the subject. “Was it a bad week?”

Adam gives half a shrug. It’s the last month of the school year, which means everything is rapidly slowing down. All in all, it was one of his better weeks. Though not as much homework meant not as much distraction. “Not really. It was fine.” The school year ending, however, means Helen’s school year is also ending, which further means that soon she’ll be home all the time.

Adam loves his sister, of course, and she may be the only person he’ll talk to about his brother, but having her ability to interrogate him around every single day is a burden he has to shoulder over the summer breaks. A weekend he can manage, but everyday wears him down a little bit too much.

“You have anything planned with your friends? High school next year, are you celebrating the end of the school year with anyone?” She sounds too hopeful.

At first, his only answer is a long groan. “ _Who_ would I be celebrating with?”

“Do not give me that. You have friends.”

He has people he would certainly _call_ his friends, though the truth of the statement could be highly contested. More than _friends_ they are _people who don’t think he’s as weird as everyone else does and therefore let him eat lunch with them most days_. “No, I’m not doing anything with my friends.”

“That’s too bad. We’ll have to do something as a family, the four of us.”

“Smooth, Helen.”

“There _are_ four of us.”

“God, be quiet.”

Her anger isn’t readable in her expression but rather in the sloppy way she shifts gears, the way her eyes are suddenly focused straight ahead. It’s been a long time since anything Adam has said has derailed Helen’s conversation so completely and for any period of time longer than a minute or two. Warily he sighs and looks pointedly at her, a silent _What did I do wrong now_?

“I just want you to be alright,” she says, all fact. Voice quiet but unwavering.

“I _am_ alright.”

Her fingers tighten around the wheel. “You can say that all you want, but—”

“I’m on every drug in the state!” Adam cries, laughing humorlessly. “I talk to this horrible doctor woman every goddamn week, I’ve tried every therapy that’s legal in the entire United States of America! How could I be anything other than _completely alright_ _?_ ” Helen remains stoic. Adam continues, “But I’m not, am I?” He leans over the console, trying to look her in the eyes. “I’m not. I embarrass you, I embarrass Mom, I embarrass Dad. A psycho for a brother, a psycho for a son. They can pay for all the help they can get their hands on, and yet it does nothing. That infuriates you, that infuriates them. Doesn’t it? Tell me I’m fucking wrong.”

“Language,” is her weak response.

“ _God_. It drives them crazy. They’re going crazier than I am because no matter what, I’m still sick.”

She takes a deep breath. “The same thing happened to all of us, Adam. He was my brother, too. Mom and Dad lost a _son_. And we’re doing fine. We’re holding it together—”

“ _You don’t know what I’m feeling._ ” It’s just a statement, but it resounds as though he’d shouted it. “You don’t know or you’d be just like me. Don’t try to tell me the _same thing happened to all of us_. It didn’t. Or you’d be like me. Or the drugs would be working. Or we’d have all offed ourselves together a long time a—”

The car flies to a stop, and Adam throws his arms out in front of him to stop himself from careening into the dashboard. Helen tears the car to the right, dragging to a stop on the shoulder. She turns her head sharply to face Adam, hair whipping with the action of it.

“You aren’t even _trying_ ,” she spits, voice breaking. “You aren’t even trying to get better.”

“Is it really a sickness if this is how I’ll always be?” The words leave his lips coldly, brought into existence with careful precision.

“God, Adam!” She covers her face with her hands and breathes shakily, elbows on the steering wheel. Adam stays as he is, regarding her distantly, expressionlessly. Her fingers, with nails painted a color somewhere between brown and purple, are trembling, and it’s with great strain that she drops them away, at last. She says nothing. She pulls the car back onto the road. She takes Adam to the doctor without another word, and when he’s finished, she drives them back home without comment.

And when they get back to the house, Helen is out of the car and slamming the door behind her before Adam can even undo his seatbelt. He tries not to notice her uneven step, the downcast of her eyes. The front door she slams as well.

“She’s dramatic.”

The voice comes from the previously empty backseat, and Adam doesn’t even seem startled to hear it. “She pretends like she’s the one holding this family together,” Adam mumbles, pushing open the door at last.

Yes, Adam can see his dead younger brother. No, he isn’t unwell. They call it sickness, but this is the way he is now—not ill, just changed.

He’s fine. It’s his family who is worried about the presence of his brother. They’re the ones who are inconvenienced. They’re the ones worried about _how this must look_.

Adam is fine.

His brother, who had been nine when he d—

When he left the others.

He didn’t stay nine. He grew alongside Adam, growing into a teenager that his parents would never see. A teenager that didn’t exist outside of Adam. Adam thought it rather a pity that the others didn’t acknowledge his existence—he’d gotten his father’s nose, the golden brown hair that had passed Adam by. He was the picture of a perfect son, everything Adam hadn’t grown up to look like. Adam was gangly, too tall, sometimes awkward in his own skin, where his brother was graceful, clean-cut, handsome.

Adam was out of his mind. His brother was perfectly sane.

He was sure his family would make the switch if they could.

“They’re awfully mean to you,” his brother says when Adam arrives to his bedroom.

The door clicks gently behind him, and Adam falls to his bed. “They don’t understand.”

“I know.” Pause. “You’re not broken, Adam.”

Adam, lying on his back, lets his face fall to the side, staring across the room at him. Adam extends his hand into the air, and his brother crosses the room and takes it, sitting on the bed beside Adam.

This is the pattern of his life. His family can hate it if they want. They can’t know the horrible apathy that pulls at his shirt collar when he works through math equations and the way it dissipates with an easy smile from his brother. They can’t know the hollow gnawing that he wakes up with most days, the ache that is only further irritated by the morning shuffle, the ache which soothes with the image of him, perched in their kitchen like a dream. They can’t know the nightmares that tug at his consciousness when it is left unguarded, the nightmares where it’s his fault, his fault, his fault that he even went into the woods that day, and his family does not know how, when his eyes fly open during these impossible hours, that his breathing is put back in line by the sound of his brother apologizing from across the room.

 _It’s okay_ , Adam says at these times, hand to his chest. _Thank you_.

He can’t see him smile in the darkness, but Adam knows that he does.

 

 

> iii.

The summer comes, and as predicted, Helen looms. She doesn’t do it in an obvious way—she isn’t always there when Adam turns around, she doesn’t stare at him from across the room, and she doesn’t pester him with questions his every waking minute. What she does is make the questions she _does_ ask especially sharp. Even when she just asks Adam how he is, it sounds like something more, like she’s asking if he’s still sane, asking if he’s lost it entirely. Everything she asks sounds like a pretense for something else, and that is enough to make Adam go mad in itself. What’s worse is that his brother seems uncharacteristically blasé towards this. Normally, he’s always as annoyed as Adam when Helen starts prying. Normally, he tells Adam his aggravation is warranted, justified. But these days he just looks on wordlessly, which is something that feels an awful lot like being spurned by the one ally Adam’s ever consistently had.

It sucks, to say the least.

It’s a Friday night, and Adam is sitting at the piano with the sheet music open to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32. His brother sits on the piano bench just beside him to his left. He taps his foot along with the notes, eyes closed. Though he isn’t touching him, Adam can feel his presence, feel the slight change in temperature that comes with someone being beside him.

“Don’t you think it’d be easier if you—?”

Adam’s fingers falter, badly. These sorts of questions are reserved for the mornings. He isn’t ready for them past nine at night. He tries to continue playing, but he keeps missing notes, hitting the wrong keys, screwing up the order. With a jolt, he slams the cover over the keys and gets to his feet.

He’d asked it innocently, matter-of-factly. Adam loathes that the answer is _Of course, of course_ , _of course_. Of course it would be easier if he—

But it isn’t an option. Adam has told him time and time again that it isn’t an option, no matter how his brother weighs down his chest, no matter how numb his fingertips go, no matter how scrutinized he feels underneath the eyes of his parents. Adam has plans: Graduate, study piano at Juilliard, move on from the heaviness of his past. One day, stop swallowing so many pills. One day, stop needing a therapist. One day, be alright.

Some days, these goals feel more attainable than others, but Adam maintains that the very least he can do is stay alive, and so far, that has been good enough.

He opens his bedroom to find it empty, and it’s one of those rare times where this is a blessing. He hadn’t followed him. Adam closes the door and leans back against it to slide to the floor. With his knees to his chest, he locks his arms around his legs. If he can just hold himself together, if he can just last through the night—

Things are always more bearable in the mornings. With the promise of a new day, it is a lot harder to dwell on everything that could have been. It’s a lot harder to think about the loss of potential, the loss of that smile, the loss of a _friend_ —

Adam presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, a small noise of discomfort leaving his lips.

 _Stop_ thinking _about that_.

Adam’s brother was always so much more charismatic than he was, always so much more natural under the scrutiny of adults, always so much more _likeable_. Oh how his parents must wish that it has been Adam to have died that day, how they must wish that they could trade sons.

He thinks this so often that the systematic way he tries to shut this thought process down is practically habit. _No_ , he thinks. _No, no, no, no_.

 _They don’t_.

 _Helen doesn’t_.

So much had been stolen from all of them that afternoon. It had been a tragic accident that felt more like a burglary. An armed burglary where Adam had been caught in the crossfire, and instead of puncturing him, the bullets had carved him out and left his wounds gaping. Somehow the rest of his family had gotten out unscathed, how had they gotten out with nothing, nothing, nothing?

Adam feels a hand on his shoulder. Despite knowing better, he opens his eyes. His brother is sitting cross-legged beside him, staring at him with eyes wide and kind. He holds his hand out to Adam, but he hesitates.

“I miss you.”

“I’m still here.”

“I know.”

He cocks his head to the side, just barely. His hand is still outstretched. “Come with me, Adam.”

This time, he doesn’t have to ask, _Wouldn’t it be easier if you just_ — _?_ because Adam wonders it himself.

 _Plans_ , he reminds himself. _But God, if he could stop having to fight_ —

There’s a knock at his door.

His brother flicks out of existence as though a switch had been flipped, and Adam gasps at the sound, dragging a heavy hand through his hair. His eyes burn like they hadn’t a moment ago, and his legs are shaky when he stands. Reality blurs at the edges. Adam cracks the door a few inches, just enough to see Helen standing there, arms wrapped around her torso.

“Hey,” she says, frail smile on her lips. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Adam responds like reflex. He doesn’t open the door wider. “Why?”

“I was listening to you play. You got off in a hurry.”

Adam hangs his head, resting his forehead against the doorjamb. He opens his mouth to respond, something about being tired, but instead he just gives a pitiful sigh. His hand falls away from the doorknob.

“Can I come in?”

“Whatever,” he whispers, not trusting the full volume of his voice.

As she pushes the door farther open, Adam sinks over to the edge of his bed, eyes stuck on the spot on the floor where his brother had just been sitting. Helen sits down beside him, not knowing what she’d just interrupted but probably able to guess.

“Little brother,” she says softly, “Why do you do this to yourself?”

Adam didn’t give his lip permission to tremble, didn’t mean to hurriedly wipe his eyes or let his shoulders sink until his elbows were on his knees and his hands latticed behind his neck. Helen’s hand rests between his shoulder blades, light but steadying.

“You can’t hold onto him forever.”

“Watch me.”

“Adam…”

“Who’s going to if I don’t?”

“The thing you’re holding onto isn’t _him_.” Surprised to hear the way her voice breaks off, Adam raises his gaze. Her eyes are closed, eyelashes looking dangerously wet, and when she opens them to see him observing her, she gives a forced laugh, remarkable for how fragile it sounds. “He’s gone, Adam. He’s been gone for four years.”

When he pulls his eyes from the disheveled picture of his sister, he notices him, reappeared and sitting at his desk across the room. He watches Adam, eyes begging, hands folded as though in prayer. For a moment, he is too real, too solid. He blinks; Adam can’t look away. Helen notices the direction of Adam’s eyes, and hers lock in on the same spot, as though, for that second, she could see him, too.

But then she’s gasping, “ _God_. I’m the one who’s here.” Her hand falls off his back to press fingers to her temple. Her other hand is tight around her stomach. “I’m here.”

His brother is watching Helen now, lips pulled downwards. “Helen,” he says. “Please.”

Adam waits for the acknowledgement on her part, waits for her to say his name back to him, but it never comes. Of course it doesn’t, though Adam still feels hollow in the wake of the resounding silence. If no one except Adam will even acknowledge his existence these days, certainly no one will say his name. She wipes her eyes, runs a hand over the back of her neck, and stands.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Helen.”

She doesn’t reply to Adam either.

The door is closed resolutely behind her.

 

 

> iv.

_Wouldn’t it be easier if you just—?_

_Wouldn’t it be easier if you just—?_

_Wouldn’t it be easier if you just—?_

Adam resists answering the question for as long as he can.

 

 

> v.

Six years have passed since the death of the youngest Gansey, but today, only a few minutes pass before Helen feels an echo of the same panic rising in her chest. For whatever reason, she senses the tug of knowing something isn’t right. She’d walked out of the house, keys in hand, about to head out to run errands, but she’d only gotten the car halfway down the driveway before realizing she’d forgotten her umbrella—it was supposed to rain later, and she had much to do. So with a sigh she’d driven back up and left the car running while she ran back into the house. She would only be a second.

But inside—no, something had been off.

Her parents were out for the day. She had left Adam playing at the piano.

The house is cloyingly silent.

Adam had been in the middle of a piece not two minutes ago, he shouldn’t be gone now.

Helen sees the umbrella propped in a corner just beside the kitchen.

She steps past it.

“Adam?” she asks lightly, peering into the living room.

Nothing, nothing. She rounds the first floor, just needing to see Adam before leaving again, just needing to see that he’d only stopped to go to the bathroom, to get some water, to reply to a phone call. When she doesn’t find him, she feels her heart speed up. She doesn’t know why, but she takes the stairs at a run, and she doesn’t stop to knock on Adam’s bedroom door. It’s open, and so is the door to his bathroom.

She’s never seen so much blood.

Certainly not in real life, certainly not in any proximity to someone she loves.

Helen can feel her body wanting to fall apart, being pulled beyond its limits.

She dials nine-one-one because it’s the only thing she knows to do. Because her hands are the only things that seem able to move. Because she can’t lose a second brother.

There’s a shadow of something sitting in the bathtub with Adam, a shadow of something Helen refuses to see. She doesn’t think that it looks like it’s holding Adam’s hand, she doesn’t think that it looks more like a _someone_ than a _something_. It’s looming there, amid the chaos, amid the grotesque scene, standing there at the edge of Helen’s clouding vision.

And then a moment later, it is not.


	2. Part II

> i.

The Ganseys’ remaining son was stitched back together, wrists bandaged with gauze white as a prayer. For days, he didn’t say a word to any of them. Whether it was out of shame or anger, Adam himself didn’t even know. Over the two days he was in the hospital, Helen was in his room around the clock whenever she was allowed, sometimes curled in the corner with a book, sometimes holding his hand. His parents were in less often. He let himself think that it was because they were ashamed to look at him. His brain knew this wasn’t the reason, but he allowed himself to think it anyway.

Psychiatrists came to see him. A psych evaluation was performed.

They gave him some new colored pills.

He was sent back home without ceremony.

But home was changing. In whispered conversations, the Ganseys came to the decision that it was time for a change in scenery. Washington, D.C. was not where they needed to be, it was too full of bad memories, and with Adam almost finished with his sophomore year, and Helen already graduated from college, it was time for a move. So that summer, they made the change.

Adam didn’t put up a fight. He let them load his stuff into boxes, he let them hire trucks to drive their stuff down to a little place in the middle of Virginia. He let Helen drape her arm around his shoulders and hold him tight. He let himself feel thankful that he was still around, he let himself feel disappointed that it hadn’t worked. His feelings were a tidal wave, no less powerful for having almost killed him.

 _Juilliard_ , he whispered to the figure when it dared to reappear.

 _Helen_ , he would go on to say.

 _One day, I’ll be okay_.

The figure looked dubious. He looked disheartened. He would reach out and touch Adam, even when he didn’t ask for it. The figure followed Adam to Henrietta, followed him to their new home, which was smaller than the one in D.C. but still bigger than they needed. Their family portraits were hung in the halls, flowers placed on the mantelpieces, but the expanses of the house still stretched on, untouched by the family.

They enroll Adam at a private school. They find him new therapists, in the plural.

 _They’re the best in the state_ , his father says.

Adam only wonders if that’s why they chose to live here.

In D.C., Helen had had her own apartment, even if she was over quite often, though when she comes with them to Henrietta, she moves back in. Everyone acts as though this is completely normal, as though it isn’t completely unlike her to do so. Sometimes she pretends like she’s looking for her own place; does she realize it isn’t fooling Adam at all? He doesn’t ask.

No one asks if his brother is still there. No one asks if he got left in D.C. No one asks, but somehow they all do at the same time. It’s in their every hopeful glance, in their every encouraging pat on the shoulder. He hears it in their voices: Every time they say _Adam_ there’s a silent _and D_ —? attached to the end. Adam doesn’t address the unspoken question, even when it’s Helen.

She still drives him to the doctor’s. She still asks him questions. But he no longer has answers.

She puts on a good show about this not bothering her.

Adam knows better.

They push through the summer.

 

> ii.

Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1. A piece Adam had picked himself.

The Aglionby practice room was far from the wandering eyes of his family and apparently outside the reach of his brother. Or at least, Adam had yet to see him here in the two months at his new school. Perhaps it was merely outside the interest of his brother.

The technicalities weren’t all that important.

Across the room, Adam thinks he hears a jostling. At first he ignores it, but eventually his curiosity gets the better of him. His fingers fall still on the keys. Someone is standing just inside the door, leaned against the doorframe, and Adam cranes his neck to see. They take another step inside.

“I have this room for seven more minutes.”

“Don’t let me interrupt, Wolfgang. I’m just listening.”

Adam purses his lips. “I didn’t ask for an audience.”

“It’s just little old me.”

“Sorry, do we know each other?”

The boy rolls his eyes. “I’m Ronan. I sit behind you in Latin.”

“I don’t—”

“And English. And Biology.”

“Look—”

“And World History.”

Adam closes his mouth. The boy’s face stirs some recognition in Adam, now that he’s looking; eyes the color of the afternoon sky, lips curled in a small but piercing smile. He’d like to—but he stops himself. Adam glances at his watch. He holds back a sigh. “I have this room for seven more minutes.”

Ronan shifts his weight between his feet. “You’re really good—”

“Seven more minutes.” Adam continues the piece where he left off.

Ronan adjusts his backpack on his shoulder, glances about the room, and then nods shortly before turning to go.

The music breaks off, sending the room into a stark silence. Now Adam does sigh. He calls, “You give up too easy.”

Slowly, Ronan reappears in the doorway, vaguely hopeful expression on his face—it makes Adam smile softly, despite himself. He motions with his head for Ronan to come back in, and he does. This boy with his tie tugged loose and a tattoo peaking from under his collar, this boy who has apparently been noticing him for the past two months, who has apparently taken some kind of interest. This boy who came to watch him play piano after school on a Tuesday afternoon. This boy who is evidently named Ronan. Adam would be damned if he’s about to turn him away.

He doesn’t know what to say, isn’t sure if there’s anything _to_ say, so he picks up playing again, and he finishes the piece just as his seven minutes are up. He doesn’t look at Ronan; suddenly, he’s hit by a wave of self-consciousness. Why had he come? Adam hastily stows his sheet music away but then hesitates before finally looking at Ronan again.

“You’re really good,” he says once more.

“Thank you.” He stands, pulling his backpack over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I’m Adam.”

Ronan looks like he wants to roll his eyes. “I know who _you_ are.”

Adam feels the beginning of a blush, and he drops his face. “I’m sorry. I’m new here, I don’t really notice people… all the time…” He runs a hand over the back of his head and then looks back up. “Ronan, right?”

“Yeah.” As they step out of the practice room, they both waver, unsure of which way the other is headed, unsure of if they’re ready to part ways just yet. Ronan is the first to collect himself, “Hey,” he says, and Adam turns his head sharply. “Listen, I know we don’t know each other and I just crashed your piano practice, but me and some friends, we were gonna go get some pizza or something. I mean, it’ll be a second, they’ve got swim practice but—whatever, do you wanna come with, maybe?”

Adam is tired. Adam is always tired after school, after navigating an entire day. He has pills he needs to take, homework that needs to be done, but instead of shooting Ronan down without a second thought, he hears himself say, “Yeah, that would be cool.”

Ronan looks relieved, an almost-smile on his lips, “Okay, well, they’re not done until five—” Currently, the time is four-thirty, “—so I don’t know if you want to… I don’t know. Whatever.”

Adam’s eyes drift to the sheet of paper on the wall just beside the door, where Adam’s name is scribbled in the 4:00-4:30 time slot, and the 4:30-5:00 remains blank. Ronan notices his attention, gestures towards the room, and Adam nods.

“Are you usually just hanging out down here after school?” Adam asks lightly.

“Only lately.”

It takes Adam a moment to realize the implication. He bites his lip and sits at the piano in a hurry, dropping his fingers to the keys before he has to think of an adequate response. Because he doesn’t need the sheet music for it, Adam begins playing _Für Elise_ , which brings a look of amusement to Ronan’s face. Adam raises his eyebrows in question, fingers unfaltering from the music. Ronan merely shakes his head. So Adam gives a hint of a shrug and continues on.

When it finishes, Adam asks, “Any requests?”

“You know anything that isn’t so…”

“So?”

“Old?”

Adam scoffs. “You can’t beat the classics.”

“Maybe not. But don’t you think it’s a little stuffy sometimes?”

Adam relents, “Perhaps sometimes. Yes. It’s what gets you into college, though.” Smiling, he begins _Für Elise_ again before Ronan can continue. To his credit, Ronan doesn’t try to interrupt him. He merely listens and watches Adam’s fingers fly over the keys. When the piece ends, he shifts into another song he doesn’t need the sheet music for, the Blue Danube Waltz. Ronan is much more attentive than Adam thinks he deserves, but he’s by no means complaining. When he finishes, he regrets to stop, but he feels he has to ask, “Do you play anything?”

Ronan looks too thoughtful, his mind too far away. “Not like _that_. My dad tried to teach me a lot of different instruments. But he was the musician, not me, none of it really stuck.” His sentence falls slightly mumbled towards the end, and Adam softens, recognizing the way people talk about the dead. He knows better than to probe further. Then Ronan swallows and continues, “How long have you been playing?”

“Long as I can remember.”

The Ganseys had tried to get all of their children playing music, but Helen abandoned her violin after just a few months and the other—well, he never even pretended like he was going to try. Adam had taken to it gladly, so at least they were one-in-three.

Adam shifts, pulling his phone out to check the time. They still have ten minutes, but then Ronan is also checking the time and standing, so he follows his lead.

“You don’t live on campus, do you?”

Adam shakes his head.

“Why not?”

With a crooked smile, Adam says, “Parents don’t trust me.”

“You’re a troublemaker?” Ronan grins mockingly.

“Something like that.” If mutilating his own wrists with a knife counted as trouble, certainly he was. Mindlessly Adam tugs at the sleeves of his sweater. “Hey, um, I need to run to the bathroom real quick. I’ll meet you outside?”

“Sure, yeah. I’m parked in the front lot, you can just head there.”

Adam nods, breaking off from Ronan to turn down a dimly lit hall, at the end of which there is a bathroom where he can get some water to swallow down the evening’s array of drugs. He’s only just turned on the faucet when he hears a voice behind him.

“You don’t need those.”

A shudder runs down Adam’s spine. When he collects himself, he questions, “Since when do you visit me at school?”

His brother quirks his head to the side. “I’m always with you.”

“Creepy, man,” he whispers, pulling the plastic container from the inside pocket of his backpack. He takes what he needs and then shoves the container back into the darkness. For a moment, he lets himself revel at the image of his brother, reflecting back in the mirror before him, and then he cups his hands full of water and swallows the pills. His eyes drift shut; he grips the basin of the sink.

“You’re making friends,” he remarks lightly.

Adam opens his eyes and turns to look over his shoulder. His voice flat, Adam says, “I met him half an hour ago.”

“He’s been paying attention to you longer than that.”

“Stop making it creepy.”

His brother is unbothered by the remark. “He could be a friend.”

“Sure.”

Then his brother glances to the side, eyes to the door. “You should go now, I think.”

Eyelids heavy, he regards his brother for an extended moment before collecting his bag and heading back out. Sure enough, it’s timed perfectly. First he sees Ronan, leaned against the trunk of a black BMW at the edge of the lot, and then he notices two other guys approaching Ronan from the other direction, just slightly closer than Adam is.

“Ronan!” one of them calls, hand raised in greeting. He has dark hair, tanned skin, and a voice loud enough to easily carry across the quiet parking lot.

The other guy, looking every bit the opposite as his companion with a shock of blonde hair and the fairest skin Adam’s ever seen, calls just as loudly, “You actually talk to piano boy today?”

“Shut up, Czerny!”

It takes Adam a moment to realize _piano boy_ is him. He bites down a smile. Really, he isn’t sure what it means that they’ve apparently been talking about him before today, but it feels—sort of nice. Not creepy. Even if Ronan does look a little mortified. The other two also seem to notice Ronan’s embarrassment, and they turn their heads in almost comical unison to see Adam’s approach. The blonde one—Czerny—gapes openly, mouth popped into the shape of an _o_. He hits the other guy, who mutters, “Yeah, I see!” and then to Adam, “Hey!”

“Hey,” Adam returns, coming to a stop. He looks past Ronan to the other two, “I’m Adam.” His voice sounds more nervous than it has any right to.

“Barrington Whelk. Just Whelk is fine, though.”

“Noah Czerny. Call me whatever.” He jostles Whelk with his elbow at this, grinning. Whelk only rolls his eyes.

Noah looks completely delighted by Adam’s presence, Whelk only looks vaguely amused. Ronan still looks sheepish, which really doesn’t fit with his features. Adam has half a mind to tell him so, but he refrains. Adam asks if he should drive his own car there, but Ronan waves it off. “I’ll drop you back off here when we’re done.”

They head for the pizza place, Whelk and Czerny in the backseat, Ronan driving.

“So, how did Ronan find you?” Noah asks, arms wrapped around the headrest of Adam’s seat. The proximity of him might feel uncomfortable if it were anyone else, but somehow Noah makes it seem natural. “Did he stalk you down at the practice rooms?”

“Noah…” Ronan warns.

“Yes, he did,” Adam says, smiling.

“Ooh,” Noah responds, eyeing Ronan.

Ronan makes a face. “He’ll run off if you keep being weird.”

Whelk grabs the collar of Noah’s shirt and pulls him back into the backseat with ease that suggests a lot of practice dealing with him. “Please,” Whelk says dryly, “You’re the one who would be scaring anyone off, not us.”

A noise that isn’t quite dissent leaves Ronan’s lips.

Whelk and Czerny are a year older than Ronan and Adam, which at least gives Adam a reason for not knowing who _they_ are. However, then it comes to light that Whelk has a monitoring period in their Latin class, and Adam only dimly recognizes him once he’s said it.

“He’s been monitoring our class since the beginning of August and you never noticed him up there?” Ronan asks, incredulous.

“We didn’t have monitors at my old school,” he mumbles. “I didn’t realize that was a thing.”

“Yeah, well. I grade your homework, Gansey.”

Adam starts. He wasn’t the one anyone ever called by his surname. (It had been a new thing, product of a late night conversation in front of a quietly droning television. _What were Mom and Dad thinking, naming me — ?_ _Do you think I could get people to just call me by our last name?_ Adam had shrugged. _Sure_. And then the other had grinned. _I think I will_.) He begins to correct him, but then Noah is talking and the words die in Adam’s throat.

“Beats me why you guys are even in that awful class. You should be in _Español_ with me.”

“I already speak Spanish.”

“All the more reason for you to take it,” Noah insists.

“We graduate in May, I’m _not_ switching my language credit now.”

“Well, not _now_ you wouldn’t.”

“God, _you guys as a pair_ are gonna scare him off.”

“Whatever,” Noah pouts, turning in his seat.

The car is quiet for all of half a second before Whelk is saying, “Oh, guess what I read this morning, though. Apparently the ley line—”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Ronan hastily cuts in. “None of that.”

“But—”

“No fuckin’ way. Not now.”

Whelk sighs.

They’re at the restaurant for hours, easily. It almost stuns Adam how simple it is, how the three of them seem interested in what Adam says, in what Adam does. And for what reason? Throughout dinner, they toss questions at Adam, significant for how different they are from the questions he’s used to, the questions that are looking for something more than what they’re asking. With Ronan and Whelk and Czerny, though—they’re just questions. Noah casually asks him what his favorite color is while he picks the pepperonis off Whelk’s pizza and puts them onto his own. Whelk asks Adam what he wants to do after school while tugging Noah closer to him by his shirt. Ronan asks Adam what kind of car he drives while staring at his lips.

This feels like something Adam can do.

It feels dangerous—but everything feels a little dangerous to Adam these days.

Happiness shouldn’t, though, and maybe that’s the difference.

They’re an eclectic group, and any three of them on their own might be intolerable. Whelk is a little arrogant, but comes down to earth because of Noah. Noah is bit of a handful, but Whelk and Ronan have infinite patience for it. Ronan is sharp, but he laughs easily around them. Adam doesn’t know how or if he could fit into the workings, but he has a vague hope.

And if the way Ronan looks at him is any sign, Adam thinks Ronan hopes so, too.

Adam doesn’t think anyone’s ever looked at him like that.

Certainly never anyone with so little ground for doing so.

Adam’s phone buzzes; the others’ eyes flick his way. He has two text messages, one from twenty minutes ago that he didn’t feel. Both from Helen.

The first reads, _hey, when are you going to be home?_

The second reads, _Adam, where are you? Call me now._

It only takes one unanswered text message to sound the alarms now. Adam sighs. “Sorry,” he mutters, “My sister.” Adam dials her without bothering to leave the table; she picks up on the first ring. At first he tries to keep his voice down, so as not to disturb the others, but their eyes are on him anyway. “Helen, hi, yes, I’m completely fine, I just didn’t feel the first text. Yes, I’m okay. I’m with some people from school. _Yes_. I swear to God I’m alright. I don’t know when. Soon enough. No, don’t—fine. Sure thing. I’m sorry for not responding quick enough. I’m really sorry. Yes, I know. You, too. Bye.”

“Annoying sister?” Noah asks, chin in his hand.

“Something like that,” Adam answers for the second time that day.

“I’ve got some of those.”

“You need to go home?” Ronan asks.

Adam shakes his head. “No rush. She’s glad I’m doing something, she just—worries.”

As it turns out, though, they leave soon after that, anyway. Noah had begun complaining about an English assignment; Whelk had reminded him that he’d told him to start it yesterday; and then Noah started doing the math to figure out how early he’d have to wake up if he didn’t finish it all tonight, and that brought the mood down exponentially. Ronan immediately said that Noah needed to get home and Noah didn’t disagree. Ronan apparently also lives in student housing, and when they drop Whelk and Czerny off, Adam apologizes.

“I should have just driven my car.”

“Whatever, it’s really no problem.”

By now, the sun is set and the sky is slipping from orange to indigo. The radio is turned low, but in the silence that follows, Adam can hear the pulsing of something electronic, something with a heavy bassline. Something that is definitively not Bach or Mozart.

Adam texts Helen that he’s heading home.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Adam says carefully, pocketing his phone as they pull into the all but deserted parking lot. “That was… nice. Of you.”

Ronan makes a dismissive noise. “Sure. No problem. Thanks for not running away.”

“Well, I don’t really know anyone else. It’d be pretty stupid to run away from the first people who…” He gestures loosely.

In a fluid motion, Ronan turns the car into the parking space beside Adam’s car. Adam only has half a second to be impressed that he remembered what car he’d said that he had before he’s remembering the downcast of Ronan’s eyes. Before he’s remembering “piano boy” and “Only lately.” Adam puts his hand to the doorknob, but he doesn’t open the door. Rather, he turns to look at Ronan.

He lets himself admire the angle of his cheekbones, the curve of his lips. Just for a moment, although it feels longer. It feels quite daring. He lets himself think that this boy might be looking at him too, might have been looking at him since the first day of school. He lets himself be flattered by the idea of Ronan Lynch having a crush on him, finding him in the practice rooms, despite the fact that Adam’s apparently never taken a second glance until now.

 _You’ve only just met him_ , he thinks.

He lets himself push that thought to the wayside.

Adam wrenches his gaze back to Ronan’s eyes. “Do you wanna—?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Adam doesn’t give himself time to think before curling a fist into the fabric of Ronan’s shirt and pulling himself over the console to meet his lips. Ronan responds equally as eagerly. It isn’t the best position—there’s not enough room for Adam to pull himself into Ronan’s seat, not enough room for him to be completely comfortable. But he catches a hand at the back of Ronan’s skull and uses the other to prop himself up, and it’s good enough for the both of them.

Adam hasn’t been kissed in a long time, and when he had been, it surely hadn’t been this—hungry, incessant, but careful. Soft lips making way for grazing teeth.

Adam can’t help but feel known in that moment; he feels like his feet are on the ground after not having been so in years. Ronan’s hand is knotted in his hair, pulling him closer, closer, as though their proximity is anything other than teenage hormones, but _God_ , it’s okay. Ronan’s fingertips run down his back, they catch around the hem of his sweater; they’re more real than any touch Adam can remember.

It feels like breathing easy, like an affection that—for once—isn’t worried, like his heart is racing out of something other than dread. It feels like it doesn’t hurt.

If Adam’s will alone could keep it from stopping, it never would.

But unfortunately, Adam’s world is dictated not only by his own wishes but by Helen’s also. His phone buzzes from his back pocket. Adam gives a hint of an annoyed noise; he hadn’t thought they’d been that long. Reluctantly he pulls back from Ronan, though for an extended moment he remains close, fingers tightening at the back of Ronan’s neck. Ronan’s eyes are very blue. Had they been that blue when they started?

Adam drifts an inch back with a breath of a smile. Then he drops his hand and pulls out his phone.

Twenty minutes had passed. _Are you okay???? What’s taking so long?_

 _I’m completely fine, I’ll be there in a minute_. He’s about to put his phone back away when another text comes in immediately afterwards.

_Are you texting and driving?????_

Adam clucks his tongue. _If I were, would you really want me to answer that?_ He sends this, and then adds in a second message, _No, I’m not_. _I’ll be home in a few_.

In the dark car, Ronan can easily read the conversation and he says softly, “Sorry.”

Turning, Adam smiles. “Are you kidding?” He puts his phone away and bites his lip. “I do have to go, though. I…” He trails off, distracted by the feeling in his chest, reaching through his fingertips. “Thanks again.”

“No problem. It turned out better than I thought it would.”

A lilt of a laugh leaves Adam’s lips. He opens his door, grabbing his backpack from where it sits at his feet. He puts one foot out of the car and turns back. “I’ll see you tomorrow in Latin _and_ Bio _and_ English.”

“And World History,” he adds.

“And World History.”

Adam stands, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, but before he closes the door, Ronan says, “Wait, Adam.” Adam turns, and Ronan has his hand outstretched, just enough that it looks like he’d thought about grabbing Adam’s hand and then thought better of it.

“Yeah?” Adam asks, reaching over to gently touch his fingertips against Ronan’s.

Ronan is distracted by the action for just an instant. Then he says, “Me and Whelk, we’re going over to Noah’s next Friday night, next week. Do you want to come with?”

“What will you do?”

Ronan shrugs. “Just hang out?”

Unwillingly Adam thinks about his Saturday morning routine, how he’ll have to make sure he’s back home in time to get enough sleep and be ready for therapy and Helen and everything else. But that will sort itself out, Adam decides. That stuff is an old burden, and the ghost of Ronan’s lips against his is a new wonder. The decision makes itself. “Yeah, sure. I’d like that.”

 

 

> iii.

“I like them,” his brother says Thursday night, the following week while Adam is brushing his teeth.

“Do you?” he asks around his toothbrush.

Swinging his feet from his seat on the edge of the counter, he nods. “They seem cool. And Ronan seems…” He does a weird thing with his eyebrows, which Adam scoffs at.

“Leave me alone,” but he says it gently, without malice.

“You seem happier.”

“I do not.”

“I think you do.”

In lieu of answering, Adam spits and lets the faucet run for longer than necessary. It may have only been a little more than a week, but suddenly school is more bearable with someone speaking to him between classes, with someone listening to him practice, with someone making out with him in the backseat of his car. But Adam didn’t think _happiness_ was so easy to come by. Just because his relationship with the three of them didn’t actively cause him pain didn’t mean it was making anything else less excruciating. At least, Adam doesn’t think it did.

With too heavy a hand, he opens the medicine cabinet and pulls out a bottle. He doesn’t open it right away, though. He turns it over in his palm, dreading the weight of it.

He doesn’t unscrew the cap. He sets it down at the edge of the sink.

He pulls out the next bottle and doesn’t open this one either.

He repeats the process until his medications are lined up along the sink, white and orange bottles staring back at him in derision.

A hand alights on his shoulder.

“I don’t think you need all those, do you?” he asks Adam.

Adam remains silent.

“They’ve given you new doctors and new medication, and for what?” he asks softly. “They still think you’re as sick as ever.”

His words ring in Adam’s ears; he shakes his head.

“Ronan and Whelk and Czerny don’t think you’re sick. Do they know?”

“No.”

“I don’t think you need all those,” he says again. “You have friends now.”

“Hardly.” Adam’s voice is ragged, hardly even a whisper.

“You’re bigger than all these drugs. Aren’t you?”

Adam’s eyes burn. “What do you want me to do, then?”

“Get rid of them.”

Adam almost laughs. The assertion is insane.

“But aren’t you, also?” his brother asks, light as air.

He’s gone half a second later, but the idea remains.

Adam unscrews the cap on every bottle and upends each one into the toilet.

 

>  iv.

The next evening, Adam almost plows straight into his dad while rushing out of the kitchen, piece of toast in his mouth.

“Whoa,” his dad laughs, stepping to the side. “Where are you off to?”

Adam swallows down a bite. “Noah’s. Helen didn’t tell you?”

“No, she didn’t, but that’s alright. You’ll be out late?”

“I don’t know,” Adam says truthfully. “Back in time for tomorrow afternoon, though.” He knows that’s what he was actually asking.

His dad nods. “I like to see you doing things, Adam.” He knocks him lightly on the shoulder, and Adam gives a small smile. “You look better.”

“Thanks,” Adam says, knowing that his dad wouldn’t be saying that if he knew what Adam had done with his medicine. But perhaps it goes to show his brother had been right.

“Of course I was,” Adam hears him say from somewhere.

“I’ve gotta run, though, I’m kind of late,” he says, glancing at his watch. It’s not like it was a timed thing, it was just the four of them, but Adam had said he could be by at seven, and he didn’t like to be unpunctual. His history essay had turned out to take longer than he’d bargained for, though, and he still had to squeeze in a moment for the piano, and it had just been a more hectic evening than he’d planned for.

“Shouldn’t you at least have some real dinner first?”

“No, I’m fine, thank you, though.”

“Alright, well you have fun.”

“Thanks, bye, Dad!”

And then he was out the door.

Adam’s evening had been hectic, yes, but it was mostly just the finale to an entire day that didn’t want to stay on the tracks. He’d woken up late—only by ten minutes, but it had felt like the world at the time—and then he’d forgotten his Latin textbook at home—though luckily now he knows Ronan, who let him share his—and in English they had a pop quiz that Adam couldn’t focus on for the life of him—he was pretty sure he bombed it. Time felt like it wasn’t quite running at its usual pace, and Adam was clawing to keep up with it.

But it didn’t feel _bad_. That was the curious thing.

It hadn’t been a bad day, it had been a more _alive_ day.

Adam had hardly noticed that his brother followed him to school.

He isn’t in the car now, though, and he isn’t there at 6:58 when Adam pulls up to the gates of the Czerny house—or maybe _mansion_ is a better word for it. The white, manor-style home reminds Adam dully of their home back in D.C., though it does nothing to stir up any sort of fondness for their old place. Ronan, Noah, and Whelk are all sitting on the porch when Adam heads up the walk, and Noah glances at Whelk’s watch from over his shoulder.

“Exactly seven o’clock,” Noah says, shaking his head. “Incredible.”

Adam gives a flick of a wave.

Noah leads them on a grand tour of the house for Adam’s sake; along the way, they pass some kind of side room, where two girls are sitting on a couch. One looks about eleven or twelve, and the other is significantly younger—probably four or five. Noah says, “Adele. Rachael.” Though Adam isn’t sure which one is which. He smiles and waves anyway. The older one waves back. The younger one doesn’t look away from the television.

“I’m supposed to be watching them, but they’ll be fine,” and then Noah leads them upstairs.

On the stairs, Whelk and Czerny are in front of Ronan and Adam, and after a second, Adam feels Ronan’s hand at the small of his back.

Adam wishes he could kiss him now.

Half the upper floor is one large room with a window for the entire back wall. There’s a large television on the wall, a wraparound couch, wet bar—it’s the picture of what anyone would call modern-day excess. A room with no purpose than just for being another place to sit, another room to decorate. And then Noah is pulling a bottle from the small fridge, and Adam does his best to swallow the concern that rises in his throat.

It’s not that Adam has any particular problem with alcohol. It’s more of the fact that antidepressants and alcohol are a notoriously bad combination, and he’s been on the former far longer than he’s ever had access to the latter. Except—

He can almost imagine his brother smiling.

Adam’s antidepressants are in the septic tank.

This could be a whole different kind of dangerous, but so is Ronan. So is everything now.

Adam doesn’t say he’s never had alcohol when Czerny passes him a glass of something, doesn’t say that he has no idea what he likes or how much he’ll be able to drink. He sits down on the couch, legs over Ronan’s lap, cool glass clutched between his fingers. Whelk and Czerny are trying to remember some drinking game they played last time they did this, though neither of them can accurately recall the rules or even what it had been called to Google it. Ronan takes a sip of whatever is in his glass and turns to Adam. He says quietly, “They’ll work on this for maybe fifteen more minutes, and then they’ll put on a movie. It’s what happens every time.”

Adam smiles.

It happens just like that. Whelk says, _Fuck it_ , Noah picks a bad movie and then lies with his head on Whelk’s lap. They hardly watch the film, though, and when they are, they’re making fun of it. Noah eventually brings the various bottles of alcohol, juice, and soda over to the coffee table.

Adam had thought it would be hard to tell when Noah got drunk simply because his usual behavior could _easily_ be the drunken behavior of someone else. But Noah after too many drinks is an entirely different thing from sober Noah. His ever-present smile is still just that, though the best word for it now would be _dopey_. He can’t keep his fingers out of Whelk’s hair. Whelk, for his part, is very accepting of it. Noah’s movements are still numerous and too fast, though now they’re more fluid.

The other two end up being the ones who are harder to decipher.

Whelk mostly just gets louder. Noah, laughter like bells, reaches over to press a finger to his lips. “Shh, Addie will hear us,” and he himself does a poor job of whispering.

Ronan, Adam thinks, doesn’t change. He’s probably not even drunk at all. In his inhibited mind, Adam finds himself wondering at the self-control, how well Ronan keeps himself together. Ronan surely doesn’t imagine hallucinations of the dead; Ronan would never let his mind go like that. Adam grabs at Ronan’s sleeve. He can feel his own mind slipping, but in a much different manner from the way the drugs stole from him.

And he’s pretty sure—

Well, Adam is pretty sure he likes it.

Perhaps Ronan can face the world with control over his life, but Adam…

That is too much to ask of Adam.

Adam knows it’s a bad idea that he keeps accepting drinks from Noah, who’s half gone himself, but he does it anyway. In the blur of the room, he’s very aware of Ronan’s eyes on him. Very aware of his hand on his leg. That hand keeps him steady, keeps him from falling away completely.

Eventually, though, Ronan pulls the glass from Adam’s hands, and Adam doesn’t have it in him to resist. The movie credits are rolling just after that, and Adam finds he doesn’t remember a single thing that happened. He does remember Noah’s jokes, though. Whelk’s grudging laughter. The feeling of Ronan’s fingers on the back of his hand. All of this under the haze of the alcohol makes the world feel lighter than Adam can even remember.

“What time is it?” Noah asks into the darkness.

“Nine forty-five,” Ronan reports.

“What the fuck. It’s time for me to go to bed.”

Whelk scoffs. The two of them, sitting on the floor in front of the couch, are curled against each other, though now Noah stretches out. He grabs the remote and switches to another movie, though by the way his arm collapses back to his body, it seems like he has no intention of watching it.

On the couch, Adam puts a hand to the back of Ronan’s neck and drags his face closer to his, just a breath away. His gaze jumps to Ronan’s lips then back to his eyes.

“Hey,” Ronan warns lightly.

“What?” Adam asks, hardly sounding like a real word.

“You’re so fucking gone, man,” he whispers, smiling.

“No, I’m here.” He tugs at Ronan’s shirt with his other hand.

Ronan runs a hand along Adam’s forehead, catching in his hair.

“Ronan…”

“Adam…” He returns the whiny tone.

He tugs Ronan closer, but Ronan maintains his resolve. He presses a chaste kiss to the side of Adam’s mouth and then puts his fingers to Adam’s chest.

“Come back when you’re sober.”

“Then it’ll be too late…”

Ronan rolls his eyes. “No, it won’t.”

With a sigh, Adam falls back against the cushions. His legs are still over Ronan’s, and his arm drifts down over the edge of the couch. The room looks skewed at an odd angle, even considering the fact that he’s lying down. He closes his eyes for just a second.

He thought it was just a second.

His phone is buzzing. Indistinctly he thinks that it’s been buzzing for a long time.

Adam opens his eyes, and his head swims. He’s still on the couch, but now Ronan is lying down beside him, his arm over Adam’s chest. A weak, uncomfortable noise leaves Adam’s lips as he tries to extract his phone from his pocket. Beside him, Ronan mumbles something.

The light of his phone nearly blinds him, and it’s all he can do to turn the brightness down. Two in the morning. Currently he has an incoming call from Helen. He accidently hits ignore and then mumbles, “Fuck.” His screen shows twelve messages from her and three unanswered calls. “Jesus,” he murmurs. He tries to sit up, but the room goes sideways.

His phone starts vibrating again. This time Adam hits the correct button.

“Helen,” he breathes, falling back onto the couch.

“Adam, I _swear to God_ , where are you?”

“I’m at Noah’s,” he says, trying to keep his voice down. “I just—I just fell asleep, I meant to come home, but we just… you know.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not _drunk_.” At this moment, Adam happens to glance over and see Ronan’s eyes cracked open. He grins. Adam knocks his knuckles against Ronan’s chest, a silent _Shut up_.

“Are you going to be home in time for therapy tomorrow?”

“Helen.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. I’ll—fuck, I’ll come home right now.”

Ronan raises his eyebrows.

“Will you?” Helen voice drips with disbelief.

“Look, I’m sorry I worried you. I’ll be home. There was no reason to worry, though, I’m with friends, we weren’t planning some kind of—some kind of suicide pact.” He drags a hand over his face, but not before noticing Ronan’s eyebrows knit together. Shit. Adam had said too much. He rubs his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Just… just come home.”

“Will do.”

The line is quiet for a beat. “I love you, Adam.”

“I know. Thank you. You also. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry.”

“I apologize. Goodbye, Helen.”

“Bye.”

Adam hangs up and drops his phone to his chest. “I cannot drive,” he states. He rolls onto his side and buries his face against Ronan’s chest. He feels his arm circle his waist and pull him closer. “I need to call her back.”

“I think you do. I would drop you off, but you probably want your car.”

“Yeah. Fuck.” A strangled, half laugh leaves his mouth. Then he groans. “I feel… bad.”

“Bad like how?”

“Like… I really need to go to the bathroom.”

Ronan sighs good naturedly. “Up you get.”

Adam just barely misses stepping on Whelk and Noah, who are a tangle of blankets and pillows on the floor just below them. Ronan’s hand is on his back again, pointing him towards the bathroom. The moment the light is on, Adam falls at the toilet and heaves until he’s not sure he still has a stomach. Ronan sits on the edge of the bathtub, eyes pointed away from Adam, though his hand drags circles between his shoulder blades.

“First time?” Ronan asks knowingly after a second.

“Thought I could fake it.”

Ronan says, “We’re a bad influence.” And Adam can hear the smile.

“Nah,” he breathes, raking a hand through his hair.

Ronan pats his back. “Stay here.”

“Don’t have to worry about that.”

“I know.”

Ronan is only gone for maybe thirty seconds, and when he’s back, he presses a glass of water into Adam’s hand.

“The suicide pact thing was just a joke,” Adam mumbles. “Just… by the way.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything.”

Adam wipes his eyes and turns away from the toilet. He reaches up to flush it, but the noise makes him grimace. It takes him all of half a second to down the glass of water. Then he rests his forehead against the side of the cabinet. He pulls his phone out, but all of a sudden it feels like too much.

“Can you dial Helen for me?” he whispers, handing the phone to Ronan.

“Sure.” But he holds the phone for too long, and after a moment, Adam hears him saying, “Hey, this is Ronan. Adam’s just fallen asleep again, I don’t think he can drive back tonight.” Adam tries to protest, but Ronan holds a finger to his lip. “Yes, I’ll make sure he’s back before noon. Yes, ma’am. He’ll be there. I’ll look out for him. Sorry to have kept you up. Goodbye.”

“She’s not _ma’am_ , she’s just my sister,” is all Adam can manage to say.

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Gotta make a good impression.”

Adam laughs dryly. The statement feels out of place for the situation they’re in, for the type of brand new, foundationless relationship they have. “Sure.” Then he groans, noticing the awful taste in his mouth.  “God. I just met you and now I’m throwing up in a toilet in front of you. I guess now you really don’t want to kiss me.”

“Nothing personal.”

“It’s okay.”

A moment of indeterminable length passes between them.

Ronan nudges him with his knee. “You done?”

“I think so.”

Ronan extends his hand, and Adam lets him help him up.

For an awful moment, Adam rocks on his feet. One hand tightens around Ronan’s, the other grabs onto the edge of the counter. “On second thought…”

 

>  v.

The pattern Adam falls into is a comfortable one. Sometimes he has to talk to his therapist with a hangover, but it’s a small price to pay for friends who are loud, charismatic, and who—for some reason—really like him.

“Yes, the new medicine really seems to be working,” Adam lies, nodding.

He does feel better, though. Sometimes the days are too bright, sometimes his work gets out of hand, but it feels good.

Ronan is good.

Ronan seeks him out between classes, Ronan picks him up on cool evenings and they drive down the quiet highway that stretches through Henrietta. Sometimes Ronan demolishes Kavinsky in a race while Adam eggs him on, grinning into the rearview mirror. When the four of them go over to Czerny’s, Ronan makes sure Adam doesn’t completely destroy himself. It’s enough, though, to lose himself, to lose grip on all of Adam’s trepidations there in the presence of Ronan. Ronan, who is all concern and protectiveness, who has a glare that could shut you up in an instant but a grin that makes Adam want to spill his secrets right there.

He didn’t, though. He felt like he _could_ , but he did not.

Ronan was not involved in the darkness in Adam’s life. Adam hoped to keep it that way.

It’s a Saturday night in December, cold and dark, when Ronan is dropping Adam back home. The clock tells Adam that it’s barely past eight. He stares out the window for a long minute, just taking in the sight of his house looming there, lit windows breaking through the darkness. He thinks he sees a curtain on Helen’s room shift. Adam undoes his seatbelt, and Ronan follows him up to the front door.

Adam grabs Ronan’s hand and leans back against the wall. He hooks his forefingers in the pockets of Ronan’s coat, pulling him close until they’re breathing the same air.

“What will you do tonight?” Ronan asks softly.

“I dunno. Study? Play piano.”

“That’s what you say every time.”

“That’s all I do.” At this point, Adam raises his hands to either side of Ronan’s face. His hands drift down his jaw, and then Adam ghosts his thumb over Ronan’s lower lip. Ronan’s gaze is lowered, porch light casting shadows of his eyelashes down his cheeks. “That, and this.” Adam’s fingers drop and he tips Ronan’s lips to his. The kiss is gentle, kinder than so many of the ones they usually share. Adam feels Ronan breathe deeply.

“Is your family home?” Ronan whispers, breaking away just enough to be heard.

“Yeah.”

He pulls their lips back together, but it’s just for a second. “Could I meet them?”

Adam stills. He meets Ronan’s eyes with hesitation. “I…”

“It’s okay if I can’t,” Ronan says, though Adam detects disappointment. “I mean, we’re not…”

“It’s not you,” Adam says by way of answering. He pulls Ronan’s fingers into his. “I want… I wish…” But he doesn’t know how he’d been planning on finishing that sentence. He drops his forehead to Ronan’s shoulder. “I like you.” And his voice is strained.

“I don’t understand, but it’s—”

Adam doesn’t know what he ever did to deserve Helen opening the front door at that moment. One minute, Ronan and Adam are alone, and the next, the door is wide open and his sister is standing there, smile on her face, expression expectant. An image of himself sinking into the earth crosses Adam’s mind as Helen exclaims, “You must be Ronan!”

Ronan takes a step back from Adam, looking to him for—permission? Guidance?

Adam just sighs.

“Yes, this is Ronan. Ronan, Helen.”

“Come in!” Helen beckons them inside.

Ronan whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Adam only shakes his head, hooking one finger with one of Ronan’s. “It’s fine.”

Helen bubbles on, leading them down the hall to the main room, where Adam knows his parents will be sitting. She says the usual, _We’ve heard so much about you_! And tacks on, _Well, not_ enough _, but that’s Adam for you_.

Ronan doesn’t look nearly as nervous as Adam feels. But of course not—Ronan doesn’t know what he’s stepped into, doesn’t even know Adam completely, and yet here he is, in Adam’s house, meeting Adam’s parents, and even if it’s been three months, Adam doesn’t know what to call Ronan. How hadn’t they spoken about this before?

Adam knows why, though. He does know. It was because of Adam, Adam’s unwillingness to complicate things, his unwillingness to introduce even the _idea_ of something complicated to what he had with Ronan. He liked kissing Ronan. He liked driving with Ronan. He liked being drunk with Ronan. He didn’t know if he liked having anything _substantial_ with Ronan.

“Mom, Dad,” Adam says breathlessly, glancing between them. He hopes they can’t see the anxiety in his eyes—probably not, they’re too busy taking in Ronan. To be fair, he is quite a presence in their tastefully decorated home. “This is Ronan, my—” He breaks off, mouth drying, and he glances to Ronan, looking for him to stop him. “My boyfriend.” The finish sounds flat in Adam’s ears, unsure. At his side, Ronan smiles.

He’s only in his house for fifteen minutes, tops. His parents seem unnaturally taken with Ronan, which Adam attributes to their mere relief that Adam is attempting some kind of façade of normal teenage life. _He’s hasn’t had a lot of friends, you know_ , his mother says, and Adam groans, _Mom_. Even though it goes perfectly fine, Adam can feel the blood beneath his skin, feel his heart beating itself to exhaustion. _Why don’t you have a cup of coffee with us_? His dad had asked, beginning to stand. Adam seized the moment to say, _Actually, Ronan has homework he has to get done, he should really be going_. Ronan had looked like he was about to say that that had never been true, but instead what left his mouth was, _That’s right, I really should be getting back_. As quickly as possible, Adam dragged him from his house, walking with him to Ronan’s car.

“I’m sorry, that was my fault, I think I probably jinxed it—” Ronan is saying, but then Adam is yanking the back door open, interrupting him.

Adam draws him inside the car, pulling Ronan on top of him. Ronan just barely manages to close the door behind them before Adam is pulling his lips to his. Adam had taken off his coat when they’d gone inside and not bothered to put it back on—the cool leather draws goosebumps all up his arms, but Ronan’s mouth at his neck and hands beneath his t-shirt are doing wonders in the way of warming his skin.

Ronan sounds like he tries to say something, but Adam only tightens his arms around his neck and sucks sharply at Ronan’s lower lip. He gets the hint and keeps his words unspoken.

Adam kisses him desperately, willing him not to be affected by his family, willing him to keep things the same. Ronan’s knee is pressed to the seat between Adam’s legs, and it’s all Adam can do to stop himself, to drop his head back against the leather. He stares at Ronan, trying to communicate wordlessly what he’s afraid of. Shakily Adam reaches up so that his hands are once again on either side of Ronan’s face, and Adam can feel his own face twisting into something uncomfortable, something frightened. He curls his fingers against Ronan’s skin. Expression soft, Ronan closes his hand over the back of Adam’s and turns his face into Adam’s palm, pressing a kiss to his wrist, just below his thumb. Adam becomes joltingly aware of the scars there, usually covered by long sleeves, invisible in the dark, but if Ronan’s hand were to slide just an inch or two downwards, God, Adam would have to explain and—

 “What’s wrong?” he whispers at last, lips grazing gently at Adam’s open palm.

Adam closes his eyes. “I like you.”

“I—I like you as well.”

“My family is—” He doesn’t know what they are to outsiders. “They worry about me.”

“I know.”

“They have good reason to.”

“Adam…”

“God, I’m fucking this up,” Adam gasps, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay because _God_ , they are close. Adam extracts his hands from Ronan’s and pushes himself so that he’s sitting up, back to the other door. To give him room, Ronan scooches back, but Adam only tugs him closer once again. He lightly takes Ronan’s hands and places them just where he knows the jagged scars are, the area of skin he’d stopped feeling long ago, and he takes a ragged breath, “With my family—everything is complicated. But with you—” He drops off. “Everything is easy with you. I don’t want that to change.”

Ronan’s hands close gingerly around Adam’s wrists, taking the information he’s offering him, taking it and holding it very cautiously. “Adam,” he says, “What a shitty world we live in.”

Adam’s laugh is more an exhale than anything else.

“Lots of shit out there trying to do us in.”

Adam can only nod.

Ronan reaches out and puts a hand to the back of Adam’s head. He kisses him.

“If you don’t hurt me, I won’t hurt you. Deal?”

A quirk of a smile touches Adam’s lips. He considers. How silly, to think that they could decide that. But Ronan’s never given him reason to doubt before, so Adam wraps his arms around Ronan’s neck and mumbles, “Deal.”


	3. Part III

> i.

“You live here?” Orla asks, incredulous, peering out the passengers’ side window.

“Yes, I do.”

“Looks expensive.”

“Orla…”

“Sorry, you knew what I meant: Looks like it cost a lot of money.”

Helen sighs, but she’s smiling, too.

Helen had met Orla accidentally. Or rather, it was an accident for Helen. She’d been at the store, trying—and failing—to locate the specific type of cheese her mother had requested for a family dinner that would be happening that weekend. The display was really too small, and Helen was already spinning through different ways she would contact management and tell them they should expand their section of imported cheeses, when Orla walked up beside her. Helen had hardly glanced over, too focused on rereading every label on the shelf, wondering which store she would try next. Then with neat grace, Orla reached up and plucked off one package which was apparently out of place, and then she’d removed the one behind it.

“I think you’re looking for this?”

Baffled, Helen blinked at the package between Orla’s fingers. She looked at her, then back at the cheese, and then back at her.

“Is this right?” Orla asked, smirking amusedly.

“Yes, how did you—?”

She put it in Helen’s hand and then waved her own through the air. “Lucky guess.”

Helen, ever curious, couldn’t leave it at that, though. At first, Orla had swatted away her questions, not wanting to get into it, not wanting to weird out another stranger. _I have to stop doing this_ , she thought. But finally it got to be too much, Helen wasn’t showing any signs of relenting, so she bit the bullet and pulled the “I’m psychic” card, expecting it to scare Helen off, expecting it to get the nosy, albeit pretty, girl out of her hair.

Long story short, it hadn’t scared Helen off. It only made her more interested.

Helen was not one to dismiss the impressiveness of a well mastered skill, even if it wasn’t the traditional sort.

Helen herself had a few untraditional skills, all of which were quite impressive to Orla as well.

It’s the thirty-first of December, a weird late afternoon, early evening time, where the sky isn’t quite blue or pink, ending up somewhere grey. Helen parks her car beside Adam’s near the front door and bites her lip. She folds her hands in her lap and turns to face Orla. She says, “My whole family is going to be here tonight.”

“Oh, honey, you think I can’t handle a good old family meeting?”

“I mean my _whole_ family. People from D.C. My _grandparents_ will be here.”

“Easy.”

Helen insists, “You don’t have to do this now.”

Orla raises her hand and catches a curl of Helens hair around her finger. “It sounds fun.” Her tone of voice dares Helen to try and get her to back out one more time.

“Okay. Then let’s go.” This sounds like a dare of Helen’s own.

“Let’s go,” Orla agrees.

Helen tells herself that this is fine. It’ll be just them and her parents and Adam for a few hours before anyone else arrives. They’ll help cook. Set the table. Dust the picture frames. The only people who really matter when it comes to Helen’s girlfriend are her parents and Adam, and everything will be very relaxed. She has this under control, just like everything.

Except—

The moment they step in the house, Orla hums to herself. “Your brothers need help.”

Helen comes to a stop, her whole body going still. “I only have one brother.”

Orla opens her mouth. And then she closes it again, taking in the sight of Helen’s stricken expression, the slight tremor in her lip, which she abruptly bites down. Something is off, and it only takes Orla another second to put her finger on it. “Right now, maybe.”

Helen closes her eyes.

“Sorry, but—”

“Is something wrong with Adam?” she asks, interrupting. Her eyes open carefully, more composed than when she shut them. She presses a carefully manicured finger to the edge of her eye.

“No, he’s just troubled.” She says it quietly, thoughtfully. “The same way you are, just. Louder.”

Helen pulls on a smile. “I’m not troubled. I’m fine.”

“I know,” Orla sighs, tucking a finger lightly under Helen’s chin. Then she drops it and says, “Let’s go meet those parents, then.”

 

> ii.

Helen’s new girlfriend is taking too much interest in Adam for his liking. He likes her, he thinks, but he has a weird suspicion that she knows something she probably shouldn’t. Surely Helen wouldn’t have told her about his brother? She’s too embarrassed by that.

Adam had just wandered back into the kitchen area to get more soda when Orla appears beside him again. Quickly Adam glances around, realizing he’d left Ronan in the other room with Whelk and Czerny, and Helen is across the room talking to their grandma. Orla smiles at Adam, and Adam attempts to return it.

“Are you alright, Adam?”

He considers the many ways he could answer that question. From across the room, his brother shoots him an ambiguous look. Orla turns swiftly, noticing the direction Adam’s eyes had drifted. He snaps his attention back to her; she raises her eyebrows. “I’m fine,” he says at last.

She looks considering. “It’s okay if you’re not.” But then she makes a face. “No, I shouldn’t say that. You are fine. You’re standing here, living, breathing, you’re perfectly fine, look at you.” She flicks her fingers, motioning to him in general. “You’re fine. It’s okay if other people don’t think you’re fine. That’s what I meant.”

Adam finds himself struck speechless. He tightens his hand around the glass he’s holding, lips parted uselessly.

Something in Orla’s eyes softens. “You don’t need to answer. You’re doing good.” She glances over her shoulder, this time not in the direction of Adam’s brother, “I think your boyfriend misses you.” Then she pats Adam on the arm and slips back through the room to Helen.

When Adam does return to Ronan, his brother is on his heels.

“I don’t like her.”

Adam is startled by the animosity in his voice. “Why not?” he mumbles into his cup, taking a sip.

“Just don’t.” And he doesn’t elaborate.

Adam slides onto the couch beside Ronan, who seems to pick up on the weird mood surrounding Adam. He leans over and touches three fingers to the far side of Adam’s face, dragging his gaze to him. “You okay?”

Adam nods. The room feels murky, though. Unsteady, as though everything were on stilts—distorted, out of place, misshapen. Ready to fall at the slightest breeze.

His brother sits in a chair opposite them, hands folded in his lap. Something in his expression is far from right; he’s smiling, then Adam blinks, and he’s frowning. Everyone else’s eyes slide easily past him. Adam swallows down.

Noah, though, is talking loudly from his spot on the floor—he always seems to be on the floor—and it’s enough of a distraction for the moment. He’s leaned against Whelk’s knee, as he’s on the couch behind him. He’s drinking something that looks like ginger ale, but Adam suspects he probably managed to grab champagne when no one was looking. By far, Noah has the least self-control of all of them.

It is the first time all three of them have been over to Adam’s house, and this only adds to Adam’s jumpy feeling. Or perhaps that’s the fact that they’re here with all of his extended family and family friends. It’s definitely some combination of the two.

The room seems to rock. Adam grabs Ronan’s hand.

His brother’s eyes are fixed on him. Adam attempts to look away, but his focus is palpable.

It’s only nine, and the mere idea of lasting three more hours among all these people is withering Adam.

Staring. His brother is staring.

He remembers the hostility in his voice.

His grip around Ronan’s hand tightens.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ronan’s voice is a little too loud this time, and Whelk’s eyes drift curiously their direction.

Adam nods fervently.

“Do you need anything?” Whelk asks.

He shakes his head.

They let the topic go and drift back into conversation over the next hour. Their side of the room seems awfully alienated from everything else buzzing in the house. His friends seem perfectly content to talk amongst themselves, though Adam’s mouth is too dry to speak. For a long time, his silence isn’t remarked upon, but eventually the nervous looks they’re sending him get to be too much—Adam’s hands tighten around Ronan’s once again.

“Adam, let’s go.” Ronan starts to stand.

Adam only offers a confused look.

“Something is wrong, come on.”

Adam lets him help him to his feet, but when Ronan tries to go in the direction of the stairs, Adam digs in his heels. His brother is standing off to Adam’s right, towards the kitchen, where the food is set up and most of his family is congregated. His brother beckons for him to go that direction. Adam does.

He hears Ronan sigh behind him, but he follows Adam nonetheless.

One of Adam’s uncles knocks him in the shoulder by way of greeting and Adam just offers a thin smile. The room is too busy and it makes Adam’s chest ache with exhaustion just looking at it. But he wades in, Ronan at his heels, his brother walking before him.

His brother stops near the counter where drinks are set up. Adam stops, waiting for him to say something, do something.

“What do you want?” Adam mumbles.

“Huh?” Ronan asks.

Adam waves him off.

His brother is just surveying the room, though. “Look, there’s Aunt Elisabeth. You haven’t seen her in a while.”

No, Adam hadn’t, but he didn’t know what that had to do with anything.

“Haven’t seen most of these people in a while.”

“Adam, are you alright?” Ronan whispers, voice more urgent than before.

“I’m fine,” he whispers, picking up a glass and pouring another soda. He leans against the counter, as though this was where he’d meant to come.

Ronan sighs and settles in beside him.

“Your whole family is here,” his brother says.

 _Our_ , he wants to correct him.

“They haven’t spoken to you much, though.”

No, they hadn’t.

“Maybe they just haven’t seen you. Just haven’t noticed you, yet.”

Adam closes his eyes. This is more than a breeze; this is a hurricane.

“They’ll probably come over any second, though.” His brother hums to himself. “Why are you so anxious right now? Thought you were doing better. Everyone did.”

He was. He had been—

“Doesn’t look like you’re much better, though.”

—Thought he had been.

The glass in Adam’s hand starts to shake.

“That Orla knows there’s something wrong with you. And you’ve been playing so brave with that boyfriend of yours, haven’t you? You just think you’ve got them all fooled.” He hits a nerve with this, and the words roar in his mind, building, louder, louder, louder, until they sound like screaming in both his ears, tearing down at the house he’d built, the walls of his emotions. It’d been a precarious balance to begin with, a horribly shaky tower founded on a new friendship, just another boy, and now his brother was attacking at the base of everything, the beginning of it all— “ _WHO ARE YOU ADAM? ARE YOU AS INVISIBLE AS I AM? WOULDN’T IT BE EASIER IF YOU JUST—?_ ”

 There’s a loud crashing at Adam’s feet. The room is knocking sideways, the colors are fading to grey, the voice of his brother is no longer coming from anywhere, it simply _is_. He doesn’t remembering collapsing to the ground, doesn’t remember covering his hands with his ears. “ _Stop_!” he hears himself screaming, “Stop, stop, stop!” He feels sharp pain in his knees, feels hands at his shoulder, tugging him to the side.

Adam yanks himself away from them.

He doesn’t remember standing. He doesn’t remember the way the room had fallen to hush, the way his broken voice had been the only sound for a sickening minute. He does remember his brother, standing with broken glass at his feet, holding his hand out to Adam.

He remembers Ronan’s voice. Not what it said but the cadence of it.

Adam thinks he threw an elbow at his gut, but that memory is distant, too.

_wouldn’t it be easier if you just—? wouldn’t it be easier if you just—? wouldn’t it be easier—_

no, no, no

Adam doesn’t know how he got up to his bedroom, but here he is, collapsed in the corner like a child gone to time-out. Knees to his chest, forehead to his knees, hands knotted in the hair at the back of his skull. All he can hear is his breath, tearing through his lungs.

Adam, invisible. Adam, who can’t manage his own emotions.

Adam, who had hurled himself into withdrawal in some desperate attempt at happiness from boys he didn’t know, who had been holding himself together by a thread for months, who had finally been overwhelmed by the pressure of it all.

Adam, whose brother had turned into a nightmare.

He hears his door open, and immediately he pulls himself smaller.

“Can I come in?” Ronan asks.

Adam’s fingers tighten in his hair.

“Tell me no if that’s the answer.”

Adam does not lift his head, but he says feebly, “No. I mean, yes. You can come in.”

The door closes. Ronan’s footsteps draw near until he’s crouched down beside Adam.

Every muscle in Adam’s body feels like it’s wound as tight as it can go, and though Ronan’s hand on his back doesn’t change that, it does make it more bearable. Adam shifts infinitesimally, so that his arm brushes up against Ronan’s. Ronan takes this as permission to move closer.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Adam.”

He doesn’t have to say that he doesn’t want to drag Ronan into this, because Ronan already knows that’s what he’s thinking. So instead he just whispers, “There’s too much.” 

When Ronan doesn’t answer, Adam dares an upward glance and he immediately recoils, falling against Ronan. His brother sits across the room from them, legs crossed, expression innocent.

“What is it?” Ronan asks, scrambling to take hold of Adam’s hand.

“Is my sister out there?”

Ronan seems unperturbed by his unanswered question. “Yes.”

“Can you get her?”

“Of course.”

For an awful moment, he is alone with his brother. But then Helen pulls Adam into her arms, and Adam cries. For the first time in forever, he lets it happen. And for once, she doesn’t ask him to explain himself. She doesn’t act like this is his fault. She whispers, _I’m so sorry_. She holds him tight in a way Adam couldn’t remember her ever doing before.

“You’re okay,” she whispers. “You’re okay.”

And when he pulls away, Helen straightens his hair for him, she blinks back her own tears.

“Adam.”

He looks at her.

“Our little brother would _never_ make you feel this way.”

Adam’s body feels like it’s falling. He presses a hand to the floor and whispers, “I know. I know that. That’s why I’m so—” He presses his fingers to his eye. “I know.”

“Isn’t the medicine working anymore?”

Adam resists a laugh. “It’s down the goddamn toilet.”

Helen doesn’t look surprised. She takes a long, even breath. “Okay. Will you trust me, Adam?”

Despite that he doesn’t know what he’s trusting her for, he nods. Of course he does. He always does.

“Orla thinks her family can help you.”

Adam doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t ask how. He lets her pull him into another hug, and when she’s gone, he lets Ronan pull him to his feet.

“What do you want to do?” Ronan whispers, catching him around the waist to steady his still shaky steps.

Adam’s body still feels disconnected from himself, disjointed, hollow. He wipes his eyes and considers the possibilities. Facing his family after having a mental breakdown in the middle of a New Year’s party is not one of them. “Can we drive somewhere?” he asks quietly.

“Fuck yes, we can do that.”

Adam doesn’t know what Helen tells their parents—or the entire rest of their family, for that matter. He doesn’t know if Whelk and Czerny stay at his house, he doesn’t know if his brother is somehow still looming there amongst everyone. He knows he goes with Ronan out to his BMW, he knows he climbs into the passenger’s seat and lets his eyes close.

He reopens them when they hit the highway, sky full of stars spreading overhead. He rolls down the window and opens his palm to the wind. His fingertips go numb, though on his other hand, he feels the fire of Ronan’s touch.

Leaving the house and his brother behind feels like a tangible thing. The ever growing distance between Adam and that place is a physical sensation. He feels his chest unknot.

Adam doesn’t know where Ronan takes them, but he knows it’s beautiful.

Ronan parks the car off an old dusty road, and all of Henrietta stretches out before them. It looks distant, miniature, as though Adam could take it into his hand, as though Adam could carry it with him.

They sit on the trunk of the BMW, Ronan’s arm tight around Adam’s shoulders, their legs tangled together. It’s too cold for them to be outside, really, but Adam isn’t shivering until Ronan is saying, “Hey. _Complicated_ doesn’t scare me.”

“What about _crazy_?” Adam whispers.

“Crazy doesn’t either.”

A pain rises in Adam’s chest—different from before, different from anything Adam can remember. He rolls onto his side, shifting from his back. He puts one hand on the other side of Ronan, staring down at him. And then he takes a deep breath and begins to speak.

Everything spills out, everything he’d thought Ronan could never know—his brother, his pills, his therapy, his attempted suicide. The way his brother had said _Come with me_ before dragging him towards the bathtub. The way he remembered seeing Helen before blacking out. The way his brother used to be his only friend, the way he’d turned into something Adam didn’t recognize. He tells Ronan about the awful things his brother says to him these days, the way Adam had dumped his medicine down the toilet. How his world had been brighter but more chaotic since that day. He talks about the way getting drunk with Ronan was often the highlight of Adam’s week, a coping mechanism he hadn’t realized he’d been utilizing. His voice falls pitifully here; Ronan whispers an apology.

He tells Ronan about the way Adam thinks about him. The way he’d thought about Ronan at first—something fun, a distraction. A pretty boy who was interested in him—vanity. He tells Ronan about the way he thinks of him now—an anchor, a spot of light. A pretty boy who cares about him—companionship.

Adam finishes with a feeble, “So yeah.” He drags a hand across Ronan’s chest. Then he shifts backwards, pulling away, crossing his legs. He folds his hands in his lap, and for a long time, Ronan is quiet.

But then he’s moving too, sitting up, catching a hand along Adam’s jaw. “What a nightmare,” he mumbles, lips brushing against Adam’s ear. Adam hums an affirmative, and then Ronan is pressing a kiss to his neck. “What a mess.” He kisses Adam’s collarbone then his lips. “What a train wreck.” Adam can feel his smile; his hands at his back, in his hair; his leg pressed to Adam’s. Adam holds tight to the front of Ronan’s coat, tight enough that he’s white-knuckled; his hands quiver, but he thinks that’s mostly from the cold. “What a disaster,” he whispers into his kiss. “What an absolute wreck,” but the way Ronan says it, it sounds more a promise.

Adam doesn’t say, _I’m crazy, Ronan_. He doesn’t say, _I’m fucked up_.

And Ronan doesn’t say, _Crazy is perfect_. _Fucked up is perfect_.

But the words are there all the same.

 

> iii.

“Hypnosis,” Helen says.

“ _No way_ ,” Adam replies.

“You said you trusted me.”

He falters.

 

>  iv.

“I need you to close your eyes, Adam,” the woman says. She’d told him her name, but the information is long gone by now. Adam also can’t remember if she’s related to Orla or if they just happen to live in the same blue house. Adam doesn’t want to close his eyes around this stranger who may or may not be related to Orla. Something in the room smells of herbs, of incense. Afternoon light drifts through the blinds at sharp angles.  Dust catches in the sunbeams. The woman asks if she can hold Adam’s hands. A girl with choppy black hair looms in the corner. His brother stands behind him. His brother doesn’t like this one bit.

The Ganseys were practical people, but more than that, they were hopeful people. No one wanted Adam back on his drugs, least of all Adam, and somehow hypnosis was the next viable step. This will help you talk, they’d said. This will help you sort out your problems, they’d said. What they’d meant was, _This will make him go away_.

The woman waits.

His brother digs his fingers into Adam’s shoulder.

Adam closes his eyes.

“I want you to imagine that you’re in your house, Adam. And I want you to imagine that you’ve just found a staircase you’ve never been down before.” Adam almost retorts that that’s ridiculous, but she keeps speaking, “Go down the stairs.” She pauses, as though giving him actual time to descend an imaginary staircase. “There’s a long hallway. Do you see it?”

“Sure,” he mutters.

“Adam.”

“Yes,” he says, resigning himself. “I see the hallway.”

“There’s a door at the end. A door you’ve never been past. You know what’s beyond it, but up until now, you’ve been too afraid to open it. You don’t want to have to deal with what you’ve hidden back there. But it’s time to take it out. Time to approach that part of you. Are you at the door, Adam?” Adam doesn’t answer. “I want you to open the door.”

She speaks slowly, and the world that she narrates gradually materializes behind his eyelids.

A long moment passes.

Adam exhales lowly. He can practically feel the coolness of the knob beneath his hand.

“What’s behind the door, Adam?”

His fingers quaver.

“Can you hear me, Adam?”

He nods.

“What has brought you to this point? What happened that day?”

The room beyond the door is quiet—deafeningly quiet. Adam can feel the empty expanse of it.

The emptiness is horrible.

Adam tells her about the empty wardrobe. The way he’d appeared in the doorway.

He’d been his best friend. They’d been in the same grade. They’d been inseparable.

Adam couldn’t put into words what it was that he’d lost or what it was that he felt—but he tries. For the first time, he tries desperately to put names to emotions. It was a story that had never been uttered in its entirety, and it feels like a monstrous thing. Adam is hardly even aware of the presence of the woman anymore; all he can see is the empty, empty room, slowly filling with everything he’d been containing. Old picture books. A frayed patch blanket. Toys Adam had long forgotten about. And pictures. Picture frames hung on the walls, pictures pressed in photo albums, polaroids taped in between all of this.

The room overflows.

 

> v.

When Adam opens his eyes, he can’t tell if anything is different because he doesn’t remember how he felt when he first walked into this room. The woman in front of him is a stranger, but he’s pretty sure she was a stranger before, too. He blinks.

“How do you feel, Adam?”

Something about hearing his name tugs him downwards—he hadn’t realized he’d felt lighter, but now he’s back on the ground. Again, he blinks. The room is almost uncomfortably warm, especially for—he thinks it’s winter, but suddenly he isn’t sure. He realizes he hasn’t answered yet. “Fine. Shouldn’t I feel fine?” His fingers curl to loose fists against his knees.

He can’t help but feel he’s missing something, though.

“You should feel fine,” she confirms.

He turns, sensing that there should be someone standing behind him. He catches sight of the girl in the corner, and he settles—that must be the cause of the feeling. Slowly he looks back at the woman, who seems to be assessing him. “Are we done?” he asks, unsure of even the depth of his uncertainty.

“If you think you’re done, you’re done.”

The problem is, he doesn’t know why he’s here. He tells her that he is done anyway. As if sensing his doubt, she waits a beat before standing. They don’t say anything to each other as she leads him to the front room, where Helen and Ronan are waiting.

Helen scrambles to her feet, an eager action that seems out of place. She looks like she wants to ask something. She doesn’t, though. Why doesn’t she?

Adam feels like he’s forgetting something. _Someone_?

Or rather, not _forgetting_ , but he feels as though he’s changed.

He doesn’t ask.

He had been talking about his brother. That he remembers. But why, though? He’d been gone for ages. And they’re in a psychic’s house, not a doctor’s office, and that’s something—different.

His thoughts keep slipping between his fingers.

The others are talking, but he’s too preoccupied with sorting himself out. Ronan drifts over to him, and Adam tugs his hand into his. He presses his other palm to his eye. _Why is everything so foggy_? He indistinctly hears the woman from before say, “He’ll need to rest.” And then they’re leaving.

Helen tries to ask how he feels.

Adam doesn’t respond.

The car ride home feels like a trek—that is to say, endless, soul-searching. Confused. He holds onto Ronan’s hand as though it were some kind of lifeline.

And when they get to their house at long last, Ronan asks if he should go. Adam couldn’t form the words begging him not to. He just holds fast.

Ronan stays.

Adam couldn’t even make it upstairs before falling asleep. He passes out on the living room couch, head pressed against Ronan’s leg, fingers still knit together. Even through his dreams, he hears the soft conversation of Helen, his parents, Ronan. His dreams are built of memories, reminiscences of days long over, a storybook childhood that doesn’t fit with the others’ troubled voices. A few times, he feels himself almost wake up, but he’s always pulled back under by a gentle laugh, a hand that’s much smaller than Ronan’s.

When Adam does wake up, it’s with a jolt.

His brother.

Outside it’s dark, and Ronan’s and Helen’s quiet conversation pulls to a halt. Adam sits up, more aware than he’s been all day, and looks between them. Helen looks oddly nervous, peering over a white mug clasped between her fingers. “Adam?” she asks.

“Our  brother…” His voice is hushed, thoughtful.

The words seem to pain her. She says nothing, though.

“What was his name?”

This isn’t what she’d been expecting. That much is obvious from the look on her face—just a suggestion of surprise, the smallest change in features. A huge reaction for a Gansey. She carefully replies, “Our brother?”

“Yes. His name. What was it?”

She swallows. “Adam, I don’t think that’s a good—”

“Helen. His name.”

“I don’t want—”

Without thinking about it, he’s on his feet, crying, “What was _his name_?” He hadn’t been lunging for Helen, but Ronan’s hand wraps around his forearm anyway, holding him back.

“Adam,” he whispers.

“What was his name? What was his name?” His voice is raised too loud, not with anger but with desperation. _Why doesn’t he know_? _Why doesn’t he know_?

Helen hangs her head, biting her lip. The barrage of questions doesn’t break her.

“ _What was his name_?” he demands, voice cracking. Adam feels himself sink, shaky breath pulling through his lungs. His knees hit the ground hard, despite Ronan’s attempt to catch him.

“Helen,” he hears Ronan say.

Adam covers his eyes, knees to the tops of his thighs. He feels Ronan’s hand on his back, on his arm, but it is separate from him, a million miles away. His mind is back in D.C., with his nameless nine-year-old brother, stuck on a disgustingly hot spring day. His breath catches in his throat. It takes all the strength Adam has left to pull his consciousness back to Henrietta, back to Ronan, back to Helen.

When he looks up, however, he’s there, too.


	4. Part IV

> i.

“Hey. Look at me.”

Adam drags his gaze towards Ronan, who’s just dropping his hands from Adam’s lapel.

“Senior prom’s supposed to be fun,” Ronan says. Then he makes a face, “That’s what I hear, anyway.”

Adam gives an airy smile, but then it fades.

The last year had been hard.

Helen had tried to drag him straight back to the Sargents’ that day, but Adam had flat-out refused. His brother had been gone for all of about eight hours; there was, apparently, no keeping the visions at bay. No one had told him his name, but eventually that had come back to him, too. His brother remained a constant, though Adam had at least been doing a better job of ignoring him these days. He was still there, however.

Adam had been accepted to Juilliard in December. It had felt spectacularly underwhelming.

Ronan had dropped out in January. It had felt like a long time coming.

And now they’re going to prom, as though they were a perfectly normal couple.

“Ronan, I don’t know if I can go to J—”

“First of all, we’re not talking about that right now. Second of all, yes you are, because you’ve wanted to go there for years. Third of all, Helen is waiting for us downstairs. Smile.” He says it as a command, not smiling himself, which has the desired affect—Adam smiles, and then he reaches up to fix Ronan’s tie.

“Have you ever tied this straight in your life?” Adam mumbles.

“Not a damn day.”

“Of course.” Adam is still smiling. He drops his palms to Ronan’s chest and exhales longly. “Okay.”

“It’s a fuckin’ dance we’re going to, not a funeral.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, pushing him in the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Helen, who recently took up photography, and Orla, who is ever involved in Helen’s vast and varying hobbies, are waiting downstairs. She lights up at the sight of the two of them, their matching black suits and red ties. Helen is immediately grabbing them by the hands and pulling them together, her camera at the ready. Adam is sporting a blush to match the rose in his boutonnière, but Ronan is natural as can be, much to everyone’s surprise. The stereotypical prom poses feel like a joke to him, and irony is something Ronan does very well. Orla is laughing the whole time while Ronan pulls Adam around the waist from behind and gives cheeky smiles.

“Now, now, Adam put your hand on his chest,” Orla says, waving her hand to indicate. “Ronan, hand around his w—yeah, you know.”

Ronan gives a cocky smile.

Adam is still flushed.

It’s a few minutes into their ridiculous prom photo shoot when Adam’s parents come out, and he almost whines. Ronan greets them loudly, shaking his dad’s hand like they’ve never met before.

“Have him back by midnight,” his mother says, and Adam wants to drop his head into the wall.

“I’ll try, I’ll try.”

But then his dad is saying, “Stay out as long as you want!”

It’s all very loud suddenly, and Adam fights to hold onto his smile. But then Orla is telling everyone to quiet down, _We still have pictures to take_! And Adam thinks he sees her wink at him. Then Helen is pushing their parents into pictures, pushing Orla into pictures, and then Orla turns around and insists Helen get in some of them. Helen throws her arms around Adam, pushes up the corners of his mouth with her fingers. Then she fixes his hair and whispers, “You look great, little brother.”

He gives a weak, “Thanks.”

“You look great, too, Ronan.”

“Trying my damnedest.”

Orla says, “I wish we could go to prom, Helen.”

Eventually they’re being pushed out the front door, waved off like they’re leaving for much longer than they are. Ronan throws an arm around Adam’s shoulders and pulls him against him and waves back at Adam’s family.

They take Ronan’s BMW, and when they hit the highway, he turns the music up until it’s rattling the car. They’ve only been gone for ten minutes when Adam gets a text from Helen containing a number of photos. Most of them look like goddamn memes—Ronan smiling like a jackal, Adam half sunken in mild embarrassment, his mom standing between the two of them with her eyes closed. But there are ones that are between the posed shots: Ronan tugging at Adam by his sleeve, Adam glancing at Ronan like no one’s looking, Ronan leaned down to whisper something in Adam’s ear. These are the good ones, and Adam can’t help but grin stupidly at them.

The past two years hadn’t been fantastic, collectively.

But Ronan had certainly never been on the negative side of things.

Prom is being held on campus in a room normally reserved for dinners organized for alumni fundraising events, charity events, that sort of thing. But tonight they’ve traded out long, white-tableclothed tables for massive speakers and colored lights. The DJ is set up near the entrance, and various round tables adorn the back end of the room. Despite the fact that it’s only just begun, there are already plenty of people milling about the room and dancing on the dancefloor.

A few people call out _hello_ s to the two of them, a few people tell them, _Hey, vote me for prom king_! But mostly they drift by unnoticed, and Adam immediately feels like he doesn’t know what they’re doing here. He turns to Ronan, wary expression on his face. Ronan just smiles easily and draws his fingers to his lips. “May I have this dance?”

“Ronan…”

“We’re at prom! Stop being boring.” He pulls Adam towards the dance floor.

It isn’t exactly a slow song, though it isn’t a fast one either, and Ronan catches their hands together, the other at Adam’s waist. He grins easily, drawing Adam into a simple dance—back and forth, back and forth.

“Not so bad?”

“No,” Adam mumbles, pulling him close enough that he can ghost a kiss to his jaw. He wraps his arms around Ronan’s neck and glances around the room, still lit by evening light filtering through the high windows. “When are Whelk and Noah getting here?”

“Who the fuck knows. They’ll probably text you.”

Adam hums an agreement. He drops his face, nestling in the crook of Ronan’s neck. He tightens his arms and takes a shaky breath. Adam feels Ronan’s grip tighten in return. Instead of Ronan telling him to cheer up again, he whispers, “Why are you so…?” It almost sounds like a frustrated question, but Adam knows it isn’t frustration with him.

Adam doesn’t know _why he’s so_ … It’s something about the end of the year, a new phase of life—everything is somehow just how he could have wanted it and also completely different than he’d ever imagined. He tries to articulate this, but mostly he just fumbles over his words and Ronan nods along. He wonders if Ronan can even hear half of what he says, mumbled into his shirt collar beneath the music. Ronan sways, keeping Adam close, close, close.

“I want to move on,” Adam confesses. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to.”

Ronan pulls back, just enough to look Adam in the eyes, try though Adam might to look away. “Hey. If you want to move on, you’ll move the fuck on.”

Adam stares back at him, longing for the words to be true. The song shifts to something more upbeat, though the two of them stay as they are, off to the side, swaying mindlessly. “I don’t think I c—”

“Lynch! Adam!” They turn abruptly to see Noah, dragging Whelk across the room by his hand, the other hand waving furiously. Adam slips from Ronan’s grip. “We’re back! Ready to take Aglionby once again! We’ve been missed!” Adam starts to say that they really haven’t, but Noah is already shaking his hand at him like he knows what he’d had in mind. “Have you guys heard the song? What are you doing?”

“Leave them alone,” Whelk says, grinning.

Noah is already bouncing on his feet, face bright. Whelk’s and Czerny’s matching orange bowties might look silly on anyone else, but somehow they make it look effortless.

“Have you guys been out to eat?” Whelk asks, ignoring the way Noah is pulling his hand to his hip.

“We’re going somewhere later,” Ronan answers.

“Nice. This one wants—” Noah tugs him sharply to the side, cutting Whelk off, “Sorry, I’ll see you guys later.” Noah is throwing his arms around Whelk, dragging him towards the center of the dancefloor.

Adam just tosses Ronan an amused expression.

“I miss them sometimes,” Ronan says flatly.

“Come on.”

They go to look at the rest of the room—it really is huge. There’s a photo booth tucked in a back corner, and Ronan says, “Ooh,” before Adam quickly nixes the idea. There are a few tables lined with refreshments, and Adam quickly announces that he doesn’t trust any open liquid containers in here. He’d been doing a good job at avoiding alcohol lately, and there was no way he was going to let himself get accidentally drunk tonight.

The two of them claim a table along the back wall. The music still reaches back here, but Adam can no longer feel the pulse of it beneath his feet. Adam pokes at a cookie he’d picked up, but mostly he’s just breaking it into pieces instead of eating it. He picks up a piece and holds it between his fingers for just a second too long. Ronan opens his mouth, and Adam breaks into a grin. He makes as if to throw it, but then drops his hand. “You’ll miss.”

“Five bucks says I don’t.”

Adam tosses it. He doesn’t miss.

“Fuck you,” Adam mumbles.

“I’ll let you off the five dollars. Only because I like you.”

“Thanks.” Adam tosses another part of the cookie. This one hits the floor.

“That was a fluke. Go again.”

Adam shakes his head. “This is—”

“Another.”

Ronan catches this one, but just barely. Smiling, he leans over, catching a finger under Adam’s chin. He catches his lips between his, running his thumb over Adam’s cheekbone, the other resting on his thigh. Adam wraps his own hand around this one. It’s a quick kiss, tasting faintly of sugar cookies, but it leaves Adam breathless, clinging to the front of Ronan’s suit, fingers faintly trembling.

“Hey,” Ronan murmurs, “What’s up?”

“I don’t think I can leave.”

“What are you talking about, _don’t think you can leave_?”

“I can’t go to Juilliard. I can’t leave my family.” He glances towards the entrance, his eyes catch on someone, and he almost gasps—but no, that wasn’t his brother, that was just the kid who sits next to him in history. He drops his face, forehead to Ronan’s shoulder, and he pulls both of Ronan’s hands into his. He holds tight. “I’ll go crazy by myself. He’ll—” He drops off.

The end of the year has been approaching like a freight train for months. His brother has been silently watching, quietly whispering doubts in Adam’s ears. He could ignore the words, yes, but he still had to hear them. Still had to see the shadow of him whenever he turned his head. Could he leave home like this? Could he really move on to college with—with him? There?

“Fuck him, honestly.”

Adam starts, looking up.

“Not your brother. Fuck whatever image you’ve conjured up. That’s not him.”

Adam wants to say that he knows, he _knows_. But he— “I can’t leave, Ronan. How am I gonna leave you, leave Helen, leave everyone? They keep telling me maybe I should wait a year, and maybe they’re right, maybe I need to sort everything out before I go, and I—I’m gonna—I’ll lose my mind. I’ve never been alone. I’ve never—” He gestures jerkily. “I have to stay here. I don’t know how to—”

“Adam,” Ronan says, laughing, of all things. “If you went insane, I’d be right there next to you.”

“But he—”

“Fuck him, I swear to God. Tell him to fuck entirely off.”

Adam finds himself smiling. “Is it that easy?”

“Promise you it is. Don’t let him stop you. Fuck that.”

“Ronan…”

“You’re going to goddamn Juilliard, okay? Holy shit. Juilliard, Adam?”

He laughs gently. “Juilliard. Yeah.”

“ _That’s_ insane.”

“And you’re gonna be a farmer.”

“Damn straight.”

Adam sighs, a sound different from his earlier ones. It’s quiet for a moment before he finally asks, “What’re we doing back here?” And then he drags Ronan back towards the dancefloor.

They don’t stay there as long or as short as they might have. They stay long enough to catch up with Whelk and Czerny, long enough for Adam to feel a hint of tiredness from dancing, a hint of frustration at the restriction of touches. At one point, Ronan goes to dance with Whelk, and it’s one of the most elegant ballroom dances Adam’s ever seen. When Adam turns to dance with Noah, it’s mostly just grinding.

They can’t all be sophisticated.

But mostly it’s Adam and Ronan, hushed conversation beneath the thunder of the music, hands that are almost wandering, lips that are almost kissing. When Adam finds his mind drifting, he hears Ronan’s voice: _Fuck him_.

Because… yeah. Adam has a life to live.

He has a boy who loves him.

Adam has no idea what will happen to him in college, no idea if he’ll be able to leave his brother behind. But he feels a buzzing anticipation at the thought of _trying_.

They leave the school and go to a late night diner, where they order milkshakes and four orders of mozzarella sticks. Adam tries dipping one in the ice cream and, despite the face he receives from Ronan, announces that it’s not bad. Ronan knocks his foot into Adam’s shin with a shake of his head. An hour ticks by, then another, and Adam’s brother doesn’t appear once.

Eventually they go, and they drive. They leave Henrietta behind, falling beneath them, like they had that New Year’s Eve. The air is warmer this time, a kinder temperature that produces neither sweat nor shivers. Adam pulls off his jacket and tosses it into the backseat, where Ronan had disposed of his before the diner.

They find themselves parked—whether it’s the same place as before or not, Adam doesn’t know. This time they don’t get out, though. Adam climbs into the backseat, knocking the jackets to the floor, and he pulls Ronan back by his tie. He wrenches it loose for him, knowing look on his face.

“Thanks,” Ronan breathes against Adam’s lips.

“No problem.” He closes the gap.

The night is made of this: Ronan deftly pulling the buttons of Adam’s shirt free. Adam’s hands curled against Ronan’s chest. Kisses that start at the lips and drag downwards, drawing bruise and blush alike. Adam’s fingers pressed to Ronan’s lips and then sliding past them. The sound of Ronan’s breath hitching in his throat, a moan breathed over Adam’s knuckles.

It’s a murmured conversation, wandering thoughts and wandering touches. It’s freckles beneath Ronan’s hands, ink beneath Adam’s, and everything in between.

It’s this: “ _God_ , I fucking love you.”

 

> ii.

“You can still change your mind,” Helen says, “You can still defer a year.”

Adam smiles weakly. “I really don’t think I can. Move-in is tomorrow.”

“I know…” She runs a hand over his chest, smoothing invisible wrinkles. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ll be okay without us up there?”

He considers. The shape of his brother cocks his head to hear the answer. “Yes.” And he means it.

“Are you—?”

“Helen,” Orla cuts in, pushing her gently to the wayside. She gives Adam a quick once over. “The boy’s perfectly ready.”

Ready to move on. Ready to start something. Ready to face new challenges.

Adam hears the closing of a trunk behind him, and he turns to see Ronan heading back their way. “All packed!” he announces, a tired sort of smile on his lips. “Time to get this show the _fuck_ on the road.”

“Language,” Helen admonishes without much force.

Ronan rolls his eyes and pulls Adam towards him.

It’s a teary afternoon. Adam’s parents fret over him, and repeatedly they tell him that he can defer a year if he’s not ready. Repeatedly he tells them that he really can’t, and he wouldn’t even if he could. He’ll never move on if he stays here forever. By the time it’s time to go, everyone believes Adam when he says he’s okay. He thinks it’s probably the first time in years.

He gets into Ronan’s car with a wave towards his sister, mother, father, and Orla.

Ronan claps a hand over Adam’s knee.

“Thank you,” Adam says.

He doesn’t specify what for—the drive to school, the help packing, the dry eyes. The faith that he’ll be alright, the encouragement to push on, the insistence that Adam is going to kill it up at college.  The kisses, the touches, the hugs. The finding of Adam in the practice room that day. Really, Adam means all of that.

He means thank you that they’d never broken their deal, thank you that Ronan was becoming the new constant in his life, replacing sickness and doubt and fear.

Adam puts the window down and opens his palm to the wind.

 

> iii.

“He’ll be okay, Helen.”

“I know.” She rolls over, peering across the dips and folds of the pillow to meet Orla’s eyes. A sigh falls from her lips. It’s early—the sun’s hardly gone down, Adam’s only been gone a few hours, but they’d already crawled into bed, a lamp in the corner illuminating the room in a dull light.

Orla reaches over to brush a strand of hair from Helen’s face, but then she comes to a stop. Her eyes catch on something past Helen, something at the other end of the room. She gives the smallest laugh. It’s a knowing sound. “Oh, Helen,” she breathes.

For a minute, Helen doesn’t fully notice her diverted attention, but when she does, she feels a chill run up her spine. Slowly she props herself onto her elbow. She doesn’t turn around.

“I’m gonna need to step out for a minute.”

“Orla,” she gasps, grabbing the front of her shirt, begging.

“Oh no, no, darling. You have something you need to sort out.” The look she gives her is pointed, and then she carefully pries Helen’s fingers free and slides from the bed. She doesn’t glance in the direction of the far side of the room again, but Helen can feel the shadow of him. Without looking, she knows what’s there.

She allows herself to dread it. She lets herself feel the full pain of _knowing_ , and then she resigns herself. Helen turns.

“Why didn’t you go with him?” she whispers finally.

Her brother looks confused. “He wasn’t the only one who wasn’t letting go.”

Helen gives a dismissive noise, though it breaks in her throat. “I _saw_ you that day,” she says, her voice unable to decide whether it’s angry or miserable, furious or just sad, “I _saw_ you when they pulled you from the woods, I _saw_ you when Dad did, when Mom did. I saw Adam running around inside looking for you, not knowing—” She inhales sharply, her eyes flitting shut. “I’ve managed the best of all of us, how _dare you_ —?”

But then he’s wrapping his arms around her, and _how many times had she wanted this_? How many times had she thought, _One more time, if I could just_ —

Because it doesn’t feel like a derangement or a hallucination or any of the other words she’d hurled at Adam. It doesn’t feel like madness or sickness. It feels like a whole load of things that should have been, an entire life of stories and relationships and successes. It feels like the weight of every time she had ever thought, _He should be here with us_. It feels like years of grieving that had been shoved away for the sake of pride.

She knows this grief, and she knows its name.

It’s a weak admission, an acceptance that this is out of her hands: “Dick,” she breathes, unwilling to think of the last time any of them had said his name. He’d hated that name, and yet here it was—the one thing that needed to be said.

She hardly notices the whispered, “Helen,”; she hardly notices his final disappearance. It’s the acute shift in her chest that she does notice. A tightness that had been there for as long as she could remember, a pang that wasn’t quite pain—it unfurls itself. When Helen opens her eyes to the empty place he was standing just a moment ago, it doesn’t look lacking.

Miles away, Adam laughs at something Ronan said, unaware that the budding lightness in his chest could be anything other than love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested, I've made a list of the songs from the musical that go along with this fic! Find them [here](http://helengansey.tumblr.com/post/143997391840/more-these-are-the-songs-that-are-most).
> 
> Thank you for reading! xx


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